Harvesting and Storing Root Crops in a Trench

Gardeners in the Juniata Valley have been laboring over the past growing season and now their hard work has paid off with an abundance of vegetables.  Many share these vegetables with friends and family but there is a way to store these vegetables that is very simple.

Developing a trench storage area in or around your home is often an easier, more economical and quicker way than the normal storing methods of freezing, canning or dehydration.  A trench storage facility can be built at little or no cost.  Utilizing stored vegetables can be a tremendous savings to a family’s total food costs.

When growing root crops it is best to allow them to remain in the ground until just before the soil freezes. If you hill soil over the shoulders of carrots and beets you can leave them in the garden longer and keep them from early frost damage.  If you add both soil and straw as insulating mulch over the rows you can keep the root crops in the ground until we have a hard ground freeze.   

Onions should be harvested as soon as their tops fall over.  Pull the onions, remove their tops and allow them to cure by hanging them in a mesh bag or place them into a crate, making sure you have good air circulation to help dry the onion necks.  A good way to determine if they are ready for storage is when you handle them, their outer skin makes a rustling sound, this indicates they have dried sufficiently and are ready for storage.

Winter squash and pumpkins should not be harvested until the vines are killed by a frost and the skin is hard.  Take your thumbnail and push on the outer skin, if it is tough to penetrate the skin has hardened and they are ready for storage.  Leave some of the stem on these crops; this will protect them against the invasion of disease while in storage.

If you have planted parsnips, they can remain in the ground all winter because they can withstand freezing.  In fact, their flavor is improved if allowed to remain in the ground over-winter and harvested in the spring.

Both kale and collards can remain in your garden long after the first frost.  By adding a wind protection to these plants you can continue harvesting them until they finally succumb to the very cold weather of late fall.

Late cabbage and celery can be harvested after the frost stops their growth.  Pull the celery with the roots attached and cut the cabbage and remove any loose leaves.

Root crops like potatoes, carrots, beets, turnips, rutabagas, winter radishes, kohlrabi and parsnips do well in home trench storage.  They do best at near freezing temperatures with high relative humidity.  Onions store well in the same temperature range but need low relative humidity in order to discourage neck rot. Leafy crops like celery and cabbage can also be trench stored, but store them separately because they give of ethylene gas while in storage; this gas is detrimental to the other vegetables.

These vegetable do well in a storage trench.  Place 3 inches of straw on the ground then place your mixed root crops on top of that straw.  Cover the root crops with 12 inches of straw and on top of the straw place 3 inches of soil.  Make an air vent area out through the soil layer with a tunnel of straw, around the outer perimeter dig a drainage trench..  This type of storage trench will keep the root crops most seasons through late December and into early January.

Celery does well in this trench storage system but you will need to pack them upright in the trench, then cover the total trench you’ve build with paper, boards and soil. The celery will root, become bleached in appearance and develop a tender condition with a nutty flavor.  They can stay in this type of storage through the end of December.

Make sure you only select high good quality vegetable to store in a trench storage area.  Do not place any vegetables in it that are unsound with blemishes, immature, diseased or damaged.  When you use the vegetables out of a trench storage unit make sure you check over the remaining produce before recovering the trench, discard any showing signs of rot, if they are allowed to remain in the trench they will affect any sound produce remaining in the trench.