Root Cellar - Reliable Food Security 

Your pro-ragamuffin approach to living and growing and building is one of the most delightful inspirations of my RU-vid experience. Watching your channel has given me a huge surge of confidence in taking the next steps to move to food forest/permaculture homesteading on my land back home. Thank you for the goodness you send out into the world via RU-vid so regularly. It really matters.

I have a dark unfinished basement that I hate. I'm going to create a root cellar in a corner and I bet I'll start to enjoy it!! Thanks for the good idea!!

Sasha is amazing! You really found your soul mate. That canning is so much work. Please tell her how wonderful she is.

Something about seeing all of those canned goods on shelves is so exciting. The potato pallet shelves look really nice also. Have you guys ever tried storing root crops in sand?

What a fantastic root store, GOALS!

Wow, that is really genius. I love that it is completely passive, no need for electric. No worries there at all. Fantastic ideas Sean! Thank you for sharing. You have a walk-in refrigerator for some traded materials. Gotta love that!

This is genius! You are one clever fella! Really enjoying watching your ingenuity…thank you for sharing all of this with us

This is inspiring! Great that your heating system helps to drive your cooling system.

Wow!! Absolutely beautiful!!!

Very excellent root cellar indeed, thank you so much for the update on this!

I remember the root cellar we had on the farm. Canned lots and lots of food. Thanks for a great tour and tips!!

Wow amazing job. Thanks for share and stay Free.

Great storage! Inspiring!

Woow, amazing job! You are reading my mind, im modifing a room to have my seeds and wines, and this is amazing

Thank you.

You have inspired me to start using my canning room in the basement, which came with the house. I used to grow cannabis in it, but now that I'm not growing indoor cannabis anymore, that room is the perfect place for a root cellar - canning room. Thanks for the tips bro!

This is great! thank you for sharing!

So excited to watch this video!

Beautiful!

I love the simplicity of your root cellar build. We are in the process of building a small cabin that will have a basement similar to that specifically so that I could have a root cellar. Adding the insulated panels to the appropriate corner and piping cooler air in was brilliant! Thank you so much for the tour. Your veggies look great as I sit here wondering what to do with my sprouting potatoes :-( Next year will be better.

Woow that's a lovely stash you got there Also wow that cooling system is so simple and yet so amazing The longer I watch the more envious I get :D That potato stash is sweet too, good variety aswell

Great food storage area. I cook my cabbage in the slow cooker with a little olive oil. It is really easy and brings out the sweetness in the cabbage.

Another very fine vid for food storage the root cellars. I grew up in a an area with the most root cellars in the world they say. I didn't grow up right here but just 15 minutes away and we also had our share of root cellars and used all the time. Not so much these days because people are spoiled and just want to run to the shop to buy every thing. lol , but there are still some being used. Don't live in this NL now moved away years ago but many family member back there. Maybe go back some day??? but my age now who knows??

That looks amazing! Thank you so much for sharing. I wish I had a basement or an outbuilding. Without those I try to grow what can keep outside in the ground - parsnips, beetroots, leeks, carrots, brassicas. All do ok outside in our mild UK winter. And winter squashes that can just be stored in the house. The only challenge is potatoes, which my family love to eat (I could just live on winter squash!) Potatoes get eaten by slugs here if left in the ground. So I’m going to experiment with creating a small in ground root cellar this year (out of a cracked water butt) and also with just leaving container grown maincrop potatoes in their container, to see if that would make any difference with the slug situation.

So look forward to experimenting with fermentation.....i suffer lower abdominal blockages on a regular basis and pickled and or fermented foods really seem to help. Anything to not have more stays in the hospital more than I already have had in the last 20 years.

This looks very cool Ill have to try it out

I love this root caller just as it is. We have a tendency these days to make things more complicated, controlled and sanitary then it needs to be. Another vlog family i watch spent big dollars 8nstalling a walk-in cooler to store their root caller crops. It was a big failure. This is attainable.

Very impressive storage system! 👍

I love it!

Very cool and interesting. I have been looking at getting a deep freezer. This definitely is not that but has many other benefits. Now I just need a proper basement. Mines a bi level and my garage is my basement .

The only suggestion I would make is to get the input pipe closer to the floor. My basement is heated with leftover solar hot water heat, so it isn't appropriate for a root cellar. But I got a old door from my father and used it to close off the bulkhead (stairs to the outside). It is insulated above to keep the really cold temperatures out. I am currently working on getting the air flow improved (it is a bit warm 42°F, and a bit dry). You have inspired me to make a video, I will let you know when I get that done.

Once helped a friend clear out a root cellar which had 800 jars that had been there about a decade.

The radishes are just dehydrated a little. Put them in moist saw dust and they will firm up!

For several years now, I haven't bothered storing major amounts of carrots or parsnips. I just leave them in the ground and mulch heavily with leaves. It saves a lot of space and keeps them in spectacular condition - much better than when I've stored them in moist sand. Whenever we have a thaw, which we seem to see a lot more of these days in CNY, I just go out and harvest some. I harvested the last of them in March. Any left in the spring, I let go to seed for future planting. There is some minor critter predation, but nothing game changing. I don't have any experience doing it with radishes or turnips.

Very clever

Very smart! 🌱🌱🌱

I've been wondering how folks store chestnuts to make them a more viable staple, without using crazy amounts of energy. Very cool, thanks for sharing!

Nice! I'm impressed. No basements here in Texas. I'm going to have to come up with something else. I have a few ideas that I will test. I can't dig very deep because the water table is high where I am. This is really year 2 for me so I still have a lot of systems that I need to put in place.

Simple, low tech but awesome!

This is incredible. Might Sasha or you consider running through what preserves you have and more recipes? 😍

That’s awesome 🤩

Pretty cool

Very impressive simple root cellar setup! I have one thing to add: I noticed near the start of the video you showed your canned foods, many of which still had the rings on them. Some of them have the rings, and some don't, so maybe you're already aware of this, but leaving the rings on your canned foods can result in false seals and possible contamination. My understanding is that the cans appear to seal properly at first, but the seal ends up breaking for whatever reason. Then, because the ring is keeping the lid close to the jar, it ends up re-sealing but with possible botulism contamination. I know this just from internet research (confirmed before posting via browsing the results of "remove canning rings"), so don't take me for an expert on the subject, but I wanted to give you a heads-up just in case. Cheers!

Hi! Thank you for sharing amazing videos. How are you keeping the area humid? I remember your first video the humidity was around 50% so how did you increase it? Thanks!

The air coming in isn't passive. It is driven by the heat of your wood stove and the air going up the flue. Our Earth-air tubes work in a similar way. When the wood stove is going (less than yours since we are in balmy Kentucky,) it draws tempered air into the house through the tubes. The active part is the fire and chimney draw.

Looks great guys......um country folk can survive and that's why☺

I actually just read an article about freezing water outside in Rubbermaid like totes (January and February) in blocks. You bring them into the basement asap after freezing and they will keep the space like a fridge all summer long. They talk about an ice chamber that you can stack them up in and set up trays for the very slow melt water collection. It would limit your summer space down there buuut it would be a passive fridge. Might be something to experiment with. I hear the cold is coming to us soon enough, soon. Might be an opp for a nice winter project.

Time to add a cheese section! Nothing quite like home made cheese.

Thanks for sharing! Many good ideas. How do you keep the rodents from eating all the open food?

Wow.. great idea! Definitely inspired by this! Do nights ever get so cold that air coming from the tubes makes the root cellar too cold?

I wish we had a root cellar but with sandy soil in earthquake country, we'll have to use something else. so here we do freezers with back up gens.

Wow! I think i will copy those stacking nut storage trays! Mine are in glass right now, not ideal. It looks simple enough, but do you have a video on how to cut and assemble them?

Ive waited all year for this vid lol

That would be a really nice setup for stratifying seeds. I need something to keep me from taking up too much space in the fridge with bags of soil.

This is awesome Sean! So, I have a NorthWest room in my basement, but it only has 1 window. If I were to build an intake system into the window, in theory I could build an outflow for the heat into the rest of the basement, correct? You've got the wheels turning on my end for sure! Quick question, for the entire community by the way. If one had this type of set up, I have heard that it is not a good idea to store apples in the same room as other crops. Is this correct (I have heard it is from the off gassing of the apples).

Do your canned jars ever freeze? Really great storage.

Love this idea. I’ve got high GW around my basement and need to keep a dehumidifier running down there to prevent mold. The dehumidifier ends up heating the space up to the 50s F. Any thoughts on how I could modify your design for my context? I have a small window near the NE corner, I’m thinking I could partition that off and possibly that could be enough to prevent the dehumidifier from affecting the area too much.

How do you utilize this space in the warmer months?

What are the conditions like in this space during summer and the rest of the warm season?

What’s the temperature in a root cellar

Biochar and compost?

As far as sawdust goes for storing vegetables....does it matter the tree variety? Hardwood vs conifer?

Cellar question! I’m in zone 6a do you think I could turn my outdoor shed into a cold cellar? Thanks again for the great videos

Wow, this is so cool.. Will it work and be safe for places where temp is below -10C? We live in Canada and winter gets to max of -35C around here.. So I am wondering if it will be safe to have a root cellar made this way in the basement..

Do you use the reusable Tattler lids for canning? Can't quite see from the video

How do you prevent mold from growing on the basement walls and floor with that set up?

do you have any tips for making black walnuts taste better? I hear people detect different flavors...the jugullone or whatever alkaloid that jumps out to my taste bud kinda tastes like acetone. I want to like it, but it tastes weird lol

Do you think something like this could be accomplished in an unattached garage? We're in south central Indiana.

when it gets to hot in there during the summer where do you move the cellar goodies to???....

how does the root cellar affect your heating costs in the winter?

Sean, I’m re-visiting this video and am wondering if you and Sasha water bath can your tomatoes, or use a pressure canner? Pressure canning feels a bit scary, so we’re trying to figure out if we can get away with the water bath method this year.

Just curious, does it never turn into a root freezer?

At 2:25 you begin to mention how you have a few pipes running into your basement. One going outside and the other connected into your wood stove, creating a vacuum. I'd be really interested to see how that works. Like, how do you connect that pipe into your wood stove as an air intake??

Do you know of a good company or farm from which we could order organic bulk grains for our chickens?

What do your summer time temps run in there?

Do you have any mold issues? How does one avoid mold growth in an environment like this?

What do you do for the lean months in spring when your root. Cellar is depleted and/or no longer viable because of warming but your plants still haven't produced a new crop? Do you plan for that or just rely on the grocery store?

How important is it for the carrots and potatoes to be open to the air? My root cellar is kept cool with ground water and i cant completely seal it from rodents. Would a foodgrade drum store these roots if its opened a few times a week? Or would that cause mold? My root veg dries out in my kitchen but im afraid it will just rot in my root cellar. Does anyone here have a springhouse or moist storage kellar?

do you use this area only during winter?

Are you super selective with your pallet wood re preservatives? Thanks

I've read that fruit (apples, pears, quince, and medlar were typically stored in root cellars) and roots/vegetables don't play nice together. (I get more excited about the fruit, but recognize that the other stuff may be more important to my nutrition.). Fruit often releases ethene, which is the senescence hormone in plants and can cause other stuff to spoil faster. Supposedly vegetables can transfer some of there flavors through the air, giving fruit an off flavor. (eg The Skillcult guy complains that his apples "taste like refrigerator" [presumably stored in a fridge rather than a cellar, but probably the same cause is at work; he is in N. California and probably doesn't have enough winter to make a cellar work well]. What methods of separation do you think would be sufficient to safely have both a root/vegetable cellar and a fruit cellar?

Berry the root veggies in sand is best

Fingers crossed

Do you eat 100% of what you grow in a year? Do you ever go to a grocery store for supplemental needs, or just barter ?

could you tell me what the actual name is for the chinese cabbages? I have seen these called half a dozen names.

Ferment those black radishes now! They are delicious that way.

This fall my carrots were covered in hair like roots. What causes this.

how do you keep roaches from finding their way in?

What about warmer months? You must have a cooler?

if you let a few carrots grow tops they might flower and give you seeds

Beautiful! Do you feel any security risk sharing the details of your food and nursery storage?

Eric`s channel ?

Please look into solar air heater/coolers on yt. made from soda cans 👍😆

Yeah guys! YEAh! thats the stuff right there. man I so want to move to your region, but my wife not having it! lower NYS for us. Im known as the failed farmer, or do it again dad. lol

If vegetables last so long in a cellar, I'm starting to wonder why we're all so dependent on fridges.

What's a basement, asks the guy in the Florida Panhandle... :)

Sasha is a kitchen witch.

I think your biggest problem will be to eat all of that! Cheers!