I came across this article will looking for something else... I love serendipity! It just seemed so apt to the discussion of root cellars, putting by and self-sufficiency...
http://www.backwoodshome.com/articles/tate55.html
What with the economy the way it is, and the fact that anyone can end up out of work at the drop of a hat, it just makes good sense to have a well stocked larder. And I must confess, mine's down right now. I don't think I'd have enough for me or my critters for very long.
Whoops!
7 Mistakes of Food Storage
Very helpful info, Jay! .....I also ordered the cookbook they offered at the bottom of the list. It has pioneer cooking recipes using only stored items, tips, etc. Can't wait to get it! :)
Hey Glenda...
How'd you like that cookbook? Is it as useful as advertised?
Taynors... how's the garden doing?
LOL... it's [fortunately] not a very good wind tunnel, but it's a great high tunnel. The roll up sides do a nice job of keeping it vented on the hot days. Things are getting huge! I'll try and get a picture later.
We tried the seeds... I planted the bokchoy too late and it bolted as soon as it came up... tasted fine but it was Very Tall. LOL The lettuce was beautiful, but kind of tough, we thought.
Haven't made any cheese recently, I've been busy trying to finish projects that have been hanging out for months... er, years? Finally got around to getting a spigot set-up for my rain storage tank, but now I find I don't have a wrench big enough to get it tight... so back to town for that. And keeping up with the garden, and trying to get fall crops in the ground for a change... we had crop failure [6 plants] with the fall broccoli starts... it sure doesn't want to start during the hottest months of the summer.
And now I'm back to it....
TTFN
Jay
Quite a coincidence, reading your post today, Jay. I just finished blanching 2 pounds of carrots and packaging them to freeze. I am famous (infamous) for buying carrots and letting them go bad because I didn't get around to cooking them -- so I put these in 1/2 pound bags to freeze. (I haven't yet grown any carrots!) I just wish I had read the section on blanching vegetables in my Joy of Cooking, first. I was given my first copy when I married at age 18, and won't admit how long ago that was; but I have been through 2 or 3 copies since, and gave a copy to each of my three sons when they left home. It is absolutely full of useful information, including how to skin a rabbit. Traditionally I have not worried much about all the "scare" rumors -- I've been hearing them since the 70'sand they never seem to materialize, but I have been gradually stocking up my pantry "just in case". And growing my own vegetables, building 2 greenhouses, and hopefully raising catfish. I really LIKE being self-sufficient!
The two most important things IMHO, are stocking stuff you LIKE to eat, not just bags & bags of rice & beans that you'd probably never eat unless you were really starving, and dating food products so you can use the older ones first. That's the hard one for me!
And now I need a freezer. And a chipper for the corn stalks. And a new carburetor for my Mantis tiller. And a new switch for my Sears tractor/mower. And . . .
If you like gizmos, a good vacuum sealer is a must to prevent freezer burn and increase storage times for long term frozen foods.
I'm not much for the apocalyptic scare stories either, but when BackWoods mag pointed out how many people in the last year had suffered localized disasters... flooding, hurricanes, tornadoes, blizzards, and long power outages... that did make me kinda sit up and take notice. It's been a little while since CA had a major shakey event, but that's another one. Got me to thinking about a 72-hour pack and "what would I do?" if the power were out for 1 wk, 2 wk, a month?
And we got pretty darn close to full quarantine conditions in many communities in the states this year... that's another one. Am I ready if the feds shut the grocery stores for a month to prevent wide-spread infection... or if the infection gets wide-spread and there aren't enough healthy people up and about to run the power, gas, and grocery stores?
But it's a lot to take in... and HEY I like beans and rice! So poo on you... LOL
What are you gonna eat... nopales?
What do catfish cowgirls wear on their feet?
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Sharkskin boots! {{harharhar}}
LOL funny joke Jay
oh my bad i called it a wind tunnel duh not a high tunnel LOL sheesh i was thinking of how windy it was that day and typed as i was thinking . Can't type and think at the same time LOL silly sue. :) your sure sound busy Jay. Wishing you well getting all them projects done . :)
Lizards_keep i have a vac and seal and love it !!!! use it for corn and okra for freezing.
Jay i got some 4 gal buckets for food storage (food grade) for the same reason. I m stocking up for any outbreak or any disaster. why take a chance , we are so rural were we are .
Azgrammie i grew some carrots this year but its not as easy as it looks LOL they were tasty .
I grew Amarillo, Red Comet and Little Finger . The Purple Dragon didn't come up or was it Purple Cosmos??
anyhow it was fun and i m going to try again in fall .
Next day or two i m going to dry some peaches .
Liz, yes I do need a vaccuum sealer. Haven't looked for one yet but it would sure help. Jay, I was going to guess "flippers" but sharkskin boots makes better sense and really cute. You are right about the quarantine conditions being possible, they have talked about shutting down schools due to the swine flu and in South America they have shut down cities -- is it over yet? A couple of years ago they were worried about the avian flu -- friends of mine in the Valley wanted to come up here and stay! I asked them if I needed to kill my chickens first. Any kind of flu is not fun -- I nearly died during the 1958 flu epidemic, I think it was the Asian flu, my then-husband was on the ship during the week and I was home alone, cold and hungry and I remember every time I got up to go boil water for tea I would faint and find myself on the floor, once I woke up upside down in the empty bathtub -- and back in the 60's, my little kids were in horrible shape in whichever flu came around. Grim. Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Taynors congratulations on your carrots. I have grown some delicious baby beets. And Jay, I like beans & rice, too, in fact I cooked up the last of my pintos & navy beans yesterday. Speaking of which, what have they done to salt pork? It doesn't look like what I used to buy -- are people using it like bacon these days? I tried nopales once and let's just say if I were really starving I'd go out and pick some cactus! They used to singe the spines off them and feed the cattle with them in hard times.
i didn't have any luck iwth beets this year . :( glad you got some good ones AZgrammie
wow on the flu you had back then. I have never had a bad case of flu (knock on wood)
beans and rice area always a good treat in my house
i don't use salt pork to much not in my diet this year. But i have noticed at the butcher i go to , it sure looks cheaper than what i use to get years ago. Some cactus is tasty ! LOL
got more onions that didn't grow but the small ones are sure tasty :) use them as boiling onions and in crock pots with meats .
gonna dry most of my stuff this year.
beans tomorrow and peppers
AZ … They also work on dry stuff. In our disaster supply kit we use it to put up dried beans, rice, flour, nuts and other things. We divided up the pinto beans and rice into two people portions. After they are sucked & sealed (no snickers) they make a handy little brick that should last forever. For the flour I just suck & seal the whole 5 lb. bag.
Did some shelled walnuts the same way and they were still tasty and fresh after about 8 months.
If you get one, get a good one. My first one was a cheapy from Sears that didn’t work worth a hoot. Got the second one from Academy.
Well, we got that cheapy little thing that Reynolds sells, the Handi-Vac, just to try it and see how we got along with the whole idea. It works great and if you haven't got the bucks for a high dollar, really good one will work until you do.
Especially where you've got humidity, it's a great idea to vacuum-pack your dehydrated stuff to keep it dry.... Not something we'll ever have to worry about, hey AZ? LOL
I've got my carrot system down now, but I am still working on the beets... we've gotten some this year (last year we got nada... the bugs got 'em before they could set true leaves), but not as reliable yet as I'd like. Trying cabbage and broccoli...
Oh! I finally got some broccoli to start in the heat. Don't even try to do it any other way than direct seed. I tried under lights... they got leggy. I tried under a row cover on a table in the green house... too hot, they wouldn't even try. It's probably too late now, but I stuffed a few seeds in with my next batch of direct-seeded lettuce and carrots, and voila! they came up... now if only nothing comes along to bite them off....
Did you guys see the new issue of Mother Earth News? There's an article on earthbag construction... aka sandbags filled with dirt instead... that I think would work just swell for a root cellar. I'm going to order the book and get the construction details, but it looks a good bit easier than cinderblock. Check it out...
I'm so hip on that root cellar too Jay! Although my math skills are horrific in the geometric arena, so maybe I can convince Darius to come stay a few weeks with me when I get to my new place and she can help me with that. She's good at that figgerin' and buildin' stuff!
Good to know about the cheaper food saver products. I just hate the plastic bags though.
I'm still trying to determine if I should do any winter crops, as I should be out of here by November, although that's still enough time to get some spinach, beets and maybe by slim chance some broccoli. Just don't know if I will have the time though.
I agree about those plastic bags... we struggled with that for a while, but in the end decided our fantastic produce (that is sooo TIC) deserved vacuum sealing. That, and we have a tendency to leave things in the freezer waaaaay to long. LOL
I tried re-using those handi-vac bags, but no go. Liquid gets in between the two layers at the sealing area and it's groddy... Drat.
I have been thinking about a root/storm cellar also and like the sandbag idea. Having some experience with sand bags, you would have to make some provision to protect the bags form the suns UV. Other wise they won’t last too long. Maybe a sod or plant covering like Asian Jasmine.
According to the article in MEN, it's easy to just nail stucco wire to the outside and stucco the bags to protect them from UV. If the cellar was buried, that of course wouldn't be a problem. There's a little more info in the mag than on the site... they use strands of barb wire between courses to prevent slippage, for example. The bags aren't tied, just folded over and laid on course. Pick up the article, it'll probably have enough info in it to get you going.
Yes mine would have to be underground here. Last time I noticed the price on fiberglass ( or was it just plastic) sand bags it wasn’t cheap.
I haven't really started looking yet, but FarmTek has 14 x 26 bags for .50 apiece for under 1000. What they use in the article are off-print feed bags, which are larger--18 x 30. They point out that feed bags can be scrounged... if you put a sign at the local feed store, maybe offering a nickle or dime a bag, you'd probably get plenty in a year. There are certainly a lot hanging on the highway fences around here!
The article says to do a "poly sandbags" search...
Ok, I didn’t think about feedbags. I was just thinking army surplus type sandbags.
What do they run?
I'm starting to think of all kinds of projects using this technique... besides the root cellar, there's lots of places a retaining wall is needed around here (I live on a slope) and I haven't lifted a single one yet. That'll probably put the cabash on a lot of 'em. LOL
But if it will work for a root cellar, that's really what I need. =0)
It’s been years since I really paid any attention to price but they were cost prohibitive at several $’s each. And it will take a bunch of them to build anything safely. Starting to have second thoughts. You may run into a lot of M & R problems with the bags.
The hardest part of installing cinder blocks is the footing but after the blocks are up they are there for all time. You may have to consider the thaw/freeze cycle where your at also. Blocks may prove to be cheaper in the long run.
I will do some more checking and see what comes up.
M & R?
I've ordered the book, it should be here next week. I can hardly wait. =o)
I disagree... for me the hardest part of cinder block is laying them. And they're expensive.
Have you looked at the mag or site?
I think M & R means maintenance and repair?
What book did you get Jay? (the bibliophile in me HAS to know...LOL!)
Earthbag Building: The Tools, Tricks, and Techniques. =0)
The article in MEN is about building a round dome-like structure which once covered looks like my idea of a hobbit house... cute, but not something I want to look at everyday. Not to mention the wasted space.
But I went to the Earthbag site, and saw that they're also building conventional rectangle shapes, and there's even an example of a nice sized root cellar...
http://www.earthbagbuilding.com/projects/rootcellar.htm
I'd probably do just a regular soddy type roof, rather than the vaulted, but it looks very doable. I especially like that it took the guy about 5 years to get it finished... that's my kinda time frame!
Here's the website, lots of pictures, but I think there's actually more useful info in the article. But they are building some pretty impressive buildings with this technique....
http://www.earthbagbuilding.com/
LOL, this line in the guy's blog made me laugh out loud..." This stone is extremely heavy. I was gifted it from my old boss. They are imported from somewhere with heavier rocks--possibly another planet like Jupiter with a larger gravitational field."
That's way cool to see how that's done. Not sure I understand the wine bottle thing yet, and I love the red door!
Thanks.
The wine bottles are like a window... the light will shine through the bottoms of the bottles. Very folksy, but I'm not sure it's actually a good idea in a root cellar. I'd think you'd want it dark in there for better storage conditions.
I was wrong about there not being enough info on the site... I hadn't noticed the Articles tab on the side... lots of info there.
One of the things I've got to try is filling a feed sack with dirt and seeing if I can MOVE it at all.... LOL
If I can, then I'm going to start parking down at the local convenience store on weekends and buying folks good empty feed bags. My friends at the feed store may let me park there, too. Especially in the winter when folks 'round here start supplementing the cows with pellets, I should be able to build up quite a stash of bags.
And soooo politically correct.... recycling, reusing, rethinking. LOL
Sorry, but life has gotten in the way of doing the important things like keeping up with the conversation.
Yes M & R is maintenance and repair.
Here cinder blocks are about $1.25 each. It’s going to take several bags to fill the space of one block. I haven’t had a chance to look at the site yet so I may be way off base with this, but to build a free standing wall the bags will have to be at least two cross stacked rows to lock them in place. If you go much over 4 feet high you would have to have some kind lf framework to keep the wall from falling. That would be a lot of weight to have fall on someone. With your freeze/thaw cycle I believe those stacked bags are going to wiggle around on you too.
Of course we are dealing with opposite climates also. Mine would have to be under ground to keep things cool in summer and I don’t have to worry much about freezing. Your problem I believe is keeping things warm, not freezing, rather than keeping them cool. Under ground might be the best route for you also.
Anyone that knows what a hobbit hole is can't be all bad. LOL
I will try to look at the site later tonight and see if any of this has made any sense or not.
You really do need to look at the site.
The bags are layed on their flat sides in the same overlapping pattern as bricks.
A feed bag has larger footprint than a cinderblock...18 x 30. Even filled they're going to have a much larger footprint. It's probably not quite as tall 4" as opposed to 8", but it has thermal mass that cinderblock doesn't have which will stabilize the temps in hot or cold climates. Barbed wire is laid between courses to prevent slippage.
Recycling feed bags, and filling them with road base is going to be a LOT cheaper than cinderblock and mortar. Not to mention a root cellar can be built without a formed concrete footing, so that's another savings. One just has to get down to the mineral earth and lay several inches of packed gravel.
I will probably use a lumber bond beam on top, rather than a poured concrete bond beam.
Ok I got to look at the site and will have to agree with you on the construction. For some reason I was thinking of a freestanding structure which would be very dangerous if it didn’t have thick walls. My some-timers must have kicked in for a while or something.
My dad (89) said it looked like a good place for snakes.
My storm/root cellar is a long way off but I now see where this bag idea might solve a few problems I’m having with building low retaining walls needed to level out some places.
Here are some stats. on commercial bags if you haven’t already looked.
· Polypropylene
· 14 x 26 inches 50 lb. cap.
· $0.38 each
Learned to stay out of the Army Surplus places anyway. They wanted $2.50 a bag.
$2.50 a bag!? My, those are precious items.
I've been talking around and I think I'll be able to come up with quite a few feed bags from the ranchers around here. Either free or for even cheaper than .38.
Even a free standing structure wouldn't necessarily need doubled walls... I've built several adobe homes with just single wall construction. And an adobe block is not as wide as a filled bag. If you'll notice, the bags are flattened with a hand tamper after being laid, and between each course is a strand or two of barbwire to prevent slippage. Of course, neither adobe nor this system would be a good idea in earthquake country... strawbale is better for that.
Yeah, we're going to start with a small 3' high retaining wall and see how we get along with the system. If that seems compatible with us, then we'll start putting up signs for bags at the local feed stores. Winter's coming, and the ranchers go through a lot of cake for the cows around here. The few I've talked to were glad to find something useful to do with all the bags.
Root cellars ARE great places for snakes... my dad has told me about the big rattlers they'd find in their storm cellar near Amarillo ("Big around as my arm!"). Not to many snakes around here, but it's good to stay alert. But we usually have a big old haystack in the fall, and they like those, too. Snakes are just another part of life that just kinda keeps you on your toes. =0)