Product Description

Anyone can learn to store fruits and vegetables safely and naturally with a cool, dark space (even a closet!) and the step-by-step advice in this book.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #745 in Books
• Published on: 1990-12-12
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 320 pages

Review
the most complete book on the subject you are likely to find. Backwoods Home Magazine a book that has become a durable classic a manual that delivers detailed guidelines for storing fruits and vegetables in the most simple way possible. The Province (Vancouver, British Columbia) The name Bubel is synonymous with practical, hands-on experience I highly recommend Root Cellaring. It s the only book you need on the subject. Maine Organic Farmer Gardener

From the Back Cover
Root cellaring, as many people remember but only a few people still practice, is a way of using the earth's naturally cool, stable temperature to store perishable fruits and vegetables. Root cellaring, as Mike and Nancy Bubel explain here, is a no-cost, simple, low-technology, energy-saving way to keep the harvest fresh all year long. In Root Cellaring, the Bubels tell how to successfully use this natural storage approach. It's the first book devoted entirely to the subject, and it covers the subject with a thoroughness that makes it the only book you'll ever need on root cellaring. Root Cellaring will tell you: * How to choose vegetable and fruit varieties that will store best * Specific individual storage requirements for nearly 100 home garden crops * How to use root cellars in the country, in the city, and in any environment * How to build root cellars, indoors and out, big and small, plain and fancy * Case histories -- reports on the root cellaring techniques and experiences of many households all over North America Root cellaring need not be strictly a country concept. Though it's often thought of as an adjunct to a large garden, a root cellar can in fact considerably stretch the resources of a small garden, making it easy to grow late succession crops for storage instead of many rows for canning and freezing. Best of all, root cellars can easily fit anywhere. Not everyone can live in the country, but everyone can benefit from natural cold storage.

About the Author
A Poland native, Mike Bubel grew up with his family using many of the techniques in their book. He and his wife Nancy have been gardening and root cellaring in Philadelphia, in small towns, and on their one acre non-working farm in Wellsville, Pennsylvania.

Customer Reviews

Very clear advice for hanging onto your harvest longer.
This is a great book for (food) gardeners and for people who have some land available to them. Although there are suggestions for "nooks and crannies" in your house, most of those ideas sound like ideas for older (draftier) homes.

The suggestions for building your own working root cellar are clear, with illustrations to help you plan. There are lists of things that keep well and under what conditions to keep them. The authors even list certain varieties of (for instance) apples that keep better than others. There's a month-by-month plan of what could be coming out of your garden, going into the root cellar, and what could be canned or frozen. If you have a large garden, this is an incredibly useful book.

However, those of us with smaller modern homes, smaller yards, and smaller, less heavily-producing gardens will be a little disappointed. As I read this, I came to the conclusion that it would be pretty darned difficult to have a root cellar on our property, because we don't have a useable cool north corner to put one in. Not impossible, mind you, it would just take a lot more effort, planning, and money to build it.

I recommend this book highly for people who raise substantial amounts of their own produce. This book will really extend your harvest. With imagination and a little time and effort, you can have a root cellar that keeps your family in fresh food you grew all year long.

A good guide to root cellaring
This book is an excellent guide if you're interested in self-sufficiency. It gives the exact storage recommendations for a good number of fruits and vegetables, including which fruits and vegetables shouldn't be stored too close together.

the best book on root cellaring
This is the best book on root cellaring that I have ever come across. If you had to buy one book on this topic this would be the one.