Root Cellaring: Natural Cold Storage of Fruits & Vegetables

The first good thing about this book is that it starts at the beginning - planning what to plant and when as a part of looking ahead to storing your produce. She talks about what foods can be stored and for how long. Later in the book there is a lot of information on specifics temperature and humidity requirements for storing each food type. There is first information on assessing what areas of your home may already be good for natural storage and then information on how you can enhance those areas (unheated basement, stairway to attic, garage, etc.). Next there is a lot of good information on actually building a root cellar. I don't see how anyone could build one without this kind of resource. Here in Vermont there is a lot of activity around buying or growing good quality food and natural cold storage is a natural extension of this interest. Refrigerators are great - but being to buy or grow bushels of apples and squash and cabbages and keep them crisp into the winter/spring is a challenge that I want to pursue. I highly recommend this book to any one who shares this interest.

I'll preface my brief comments that my interest is in root cellar construction, and I bought both this and Julie Fryer's book. BOTH ARE SUPERB!! You will not go wrong with either of them, and I HIGHLY recommend, if you have some spare change in your pockets, to get both! OK, if I were pressed to recommend only one, I would recommend this one . . . but as soon as I say that, Julie's is excellent, too. The Bubel is an all-around complete root cellaring book that also includes many chapters on construction and everything you will possibly ever need/want to know about root cellaring; the Fryer book is a complete construction book that also includes all aspects of root cellaring. You see what I mean? :) They are both excellent! Get both. I promise you that you will not regret it! Happy root cellaring!

This book holds allot of information. If your new to storing your garden produce or want to learn more about doing it better this book is for you. Many pages of resources at the back, as well as recipes using your pantry and garden items. Wonderful information on building and/or making your cellar/basement a better storage place for your garden produce. It’s a shelf keeper for me.

The book goes into great detail about what plants will thrive in root gardens. A small ammount of technical details: temperature, planting months, germination techniques are presented. As with many books of this genre (natural/organic in my view), repeating the same idea is prevalent. Many chapters cover the same topics as to which plants will thrive. A more compact book would suit the same purpose and reduce the number of pages. The author tries to cover a wide geographic area in the reviews, but most are tailored to specifice areas of the north where they have had experience (I did not see to much about the south and southwest). The last few chapter involve constructing your own root cellar. Many ideas and techniques for root cellar construciton are presented, but are no way an exhaustive exploration of all possibilities. The plans for construction give the spark for which you will have to provide the rest.

I bought this with very little to no knowledge on building or starting a root cellar. After just the first two chapters I feel so much more informed than I thought I ever could. The author educated the reader not only on building the cellar, but what season is best to start growing things in to put in the cellar. I feel I learned so much on the proper way to grow and store items from my garden, as well as feeling confident in how long they will keep for. I’m excited to get started! A definite recommend from me!

Well-written and thorough--I highly recommend this book.

Good info for my off grid plan

This book covers all aspects of this type of project, from deciding whether or not do build one through how to lock it up. Informative, easy-to-understand text is accompanied by lots of pictures of various styles of root cellars. One of the best aspects is the authors' sharing of their early failures and how to avoid them. I'm finding that this book is staying right with me as I work toward completing my project. I have 2 other books on the topic and read 22 more from the library - this is "head and shoulders above" the rest! Been an invaluable help!

one of my best books on homesteading. GREat piece of knowledge, you've got to have this book if you are planning to do this, incredible amount of information which would probably save you a LOT of time and money, not to mention rotten veggie...

Lots of great information, and ideas in this book. Just started reading a week ago and is hard to put down. Great book.

Very useful information!

I've been looking for a book on Root Cellaring and this one hits a home run. Has design principles for cellars and examples of different types. Really explains things well. Also has in depth info on types of fruits and vegetables that store well in cellars even to the point of giving seed varieties and how to select for your garden and area. Great resource. Pages will be well worn until I absorb all the info offered.

Prompt delivery and well packaged. Item itself very interesting and has been well received (gift); full of old ways of prolonging storage of vegetables/ food. For those interested in topic a good book. Felt illustrations could have been a bit better - but can't fault amount of information.