Root Cellar - Refrigerate Using Nature
by John Yazo
Root cellars are used in areas of drastic seasonal temperature changes. They are cellars used for keeping food cool in the hot summer months and are used to keep food from freezing in the winter months. Most old farm houses had cellars with dirt floors that also served as there root cellar and others dug them separately from the house into a hill side. Root Cellaring was used basically as the first type of refrigeration. Properly built and insulated root cellars can be 40 degrees cooler than the air temperature outside in the summer and just above freezing in the cold winter months.
Ventilation is a key to temperature and humidity control in a root cellar. It also helps to let gases escape that certain foods emit into the air.
Storing food in a root cellar has a little planning to be done properly. Certain things like apples emit a gas ethylene and can cause problems with potatoes stored close by. Learning and storing foods on shelfs at different levels to let the gases vent in a root cellar can eliminate a lot of problems.
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