It does not have to be big. Many cold cellars are under the front or back steps. The size should be big enough to hold shelves on 3 sides and still stand in the middle. Insulate it with styrofoam so it stays cold, On the bottom, I would suggest having pull out bins or a shelf big enough to hold bushel baskets or such for potatoes, squashes and tubers or pots of geraniums you want to store for the winter. Make sure they will have air circulation though. The other shelves only need to be about a foot and a half wide and as high as your largest canning jar or whatever you want to store there. Somewhere include a few hooks for hanging mesh bags of onions

This is the layout of my neighbors root cellar and she does lots and lots of canning and they grow garden too. I would dearly love one but our house is not built so we could add one.

One summer, we had to redo the basement floor because of tree roots cracking it. We never had a storage place for potatoes before and so, when the cracked floor was removed, my DH suggested he would build a 'pit' for me. So, my DH and sons dug out a deep hole (a 'pit') in one end of the basement. Then he cemented the bottom and sides of the hole and then, when the basement floor cement was poured, that became the ceiling of the 'pit'. In the pit, he made ledges on either side of a center walkway for me to place the produce on. These ledges are also cemented. We now open up a trap door, go down a ladder and store all the potatoes, canna/dahlia/flower roots down there in the 'pit' for winter. I do not put onions or glads in there as it is too moist for them. Potatoes need to be stored at a high humidity as the cannas, geraniums and dahlias can be. Our potatoes are easily stored right thru May the following year in there. In past years, I have stored carrots, beets and apples in there as well. They keep great!! Squash will store for a few months only, as the humidity is too high in the pit.

We cemented the ledges, floor and walls and placed a little trench down the center of the walkway so that if we would ever wish to wash down the cellar we could easily do so. This little trench leads to a small hole in the basement wall that in turn leads to the weaping tile on the outside of the house. The floor slopes gently from one end of the pit to the outside wall so that it will drain, should we ever need to wash down the area.

I also would never dream of storing my canning jars full of produce down there either, as, even though it is dark and cool, it is also moist enough with all the crates of potatoes and the cement walls, that the canning lids would rust very quickly. Also, homemade canned goods can be stored at room temps as they are sealed once processed so there is no need to keep them in a cold area where potatoes are stored.

As the root cellar (our'pit') is below our basement, we do not heat it at all. The room above the cellar has our furnace in it but no heat otherwise. There are two holes in the ceiling of the pit/the floor of the furnace room for ventilation purposes.

Does this whole set up make sense to you? I think it is such a wonderful area for storage and as it is cemented it is exremely clean to use. If we left it as a dirt floor and ledges, then we would be forever be tracking dirt into the basement from in the pit.

Yes, it will take your husband a while to dig out the dirt and yes, cementing the floors and walls could be challenging to do when you have to bring it into the area but, it will be well worth it in the end.

Let us know how progress is going on the project once you get working on it.

Oh, yah, the first winter we had the pit, we kept the trapdoor open as cement gives off a lot of moisture as it dries out. It was still cool enough in there to store potatoes that winter, but we had no moisture problems to deal with while the cement cured because of the trapdoor being open.

Oilpainter, your neighbor's potatoes probably won't store very long in their cold room because of the lower humidity and warmer temps. Do you know how long she is able to keep them?

Brenda

Brenda, looks like you have a good cellar now, heaving high moisture level is good for a root cellar.
I was just looking at cistern and septic tanks and I might dig one into a hill, bottom open, I always wanted one with
about half dirt or sand floor, easy to heel in root vegetables/plants and such.
How do you keep apples, carrots and potatoes separated, I know they don't do well together, I'm thinking to divide the cellar and have
separated vents.

Konrad

Konrad,

I know that storing apples/potatoes/carrots together is not such a good thing...but the area is 9' wide, 16' long and 7' deep. So, I place the apples at one end, the carrots at the other and the potatoes in the center. I have only stored apples in them one year. All the other years I managed to clean them up as they were ready. Carrot tops were cut off and then they are stored in a plastic bag with a few holes punched in them. They stay well into the new year.

Yes, a septic tank or cistern would work well as a cold storage in the side of a hill.

Brenda

Brenda your"pit" sounds great I'm envious. You mentioned canna lilies- yes I've read lots about storing them- but how much moisture do they need? each rhizome is about 10"x 5" and will take up room-haven't removed all the soil yet-lots of conflicting info- What do you do Brenda?
Any and all advise would help.
My parents had a "cool" room(An old coal storage room ) in the basement with large slanted bins with sand in some and I think peat?or something in some .Anyway we had potatoes,carrots beets in their own bin .I remember cabbage and turnips being on the floor.They kept the apples in a differnt cool room.
Good luck Lois

Cannas...I leave as much garden soil around them as possible and store them in a large plastic pot or open plastic bag. I do not place them in the cold storage until the soil is completely dried out. The years I stored them in peat moss the peat moss dried them out too much and I had a shrivelled root the next spring to work with. Dry peat moss will take moisture away from the root. Some people use peat moss all the time though.

Some years I have repotted my cannas into the pots that they will be in for the next summer, then stored the cannas...pot and all in the cold storage 'pit'. I guess that is an advantage of having a huge area to work with. In the spring, I just take the pot out of storage and water it.

Yes, it is great having a large 'pit' to work with. When my DH built the room he knew that it would probably be right full with produce and plants each winter and so, he made it into a large underground room. So, Trisha....have your DH build you the biggest room he will possibly do. Let him know all the produce and plants that you could store in there now, instead of storing them in the house in some room at room temperature for the winter.

Brenda