In this part of New Hampshire there are ruins of root cellars scattered throughout areas that were more densely settled in the past. Our town has several old schoolhouses which served settlements that are mostly all woods now. Sometimes out walking we stumble on the remains of old buildings.My parents built their house on a small, triangular piece of land that was once the garden for a family house, Pompilia, which burnt down in 1979. Cousins live across the lane in what used to be the gardener's cottage. My mother remembers John, the gardener, and it is his old root cellar that is still in my parents' field.
At one time we cleared some of that land in hopes of building a house just beyond that field. The dump for Pompilia must have been there, near the root cellar. We were thrilled to excavate some interesting finds. On our mantle we have the front part of an old andiron in the shape of an Asian fish. It's easy to picture a pair of these beautiful andirons in one of the many fireplaces at Pompilia.
We never did build that house but instead stumbled on one already built as though with our small family in mind. It's a beautiful piece of land, and we're so happy here. But we still have that building bug. Last year on a trip to Portugal I saw the most amazing tiled house, and that got me fantasizing about building a tiled garden shed. Perhaps if we ever do tile a shed, we'll incorporate a root cellar into the plans, along with some cold frames.
We really do wish we had a place to grow and store more vegetables over the winter. Like so many, we'd like to be more self-reliant. I've been thinking about all the various ways to make a root cellar and what would be most efficient for us. I like the idea of the root cellar being accessible in the wintertime through a door in the basement. Who wants to trudge outdoors to shovel snow off the door of a cellar to go find some old potatoes?
Recently a friend, Katie, and I were talking about how it's possible to use a bulkhead for a cellar. Our bulkhead already has a make-shift door to keep the cold from coming into the basement, and those cement stairs would lend themselves to becoming shallow shelves in the winter months. We need to set up the monitoring of temperature and humidity there to see whether this is a possibility for next year.
Certainly a bulkhead root cellar would be the easiest solution, but I'll still think about that tiled shed, a touch of the Mediterranean in the frozen north!
3 comments:
I like the idea of using the bulk head as a root cellar. Ours has a metal door (that doesn't seal tight) and I think we would need to cover it somehow. Otherwise, I expect it would be too cold. What is the optimum temperature for a root cellar?
The other possibility might be the well room. Come to think of it there are old shelves in there! Just the right size for canning jars. Let's work this out for next winter. I would love to be able to take advantage of Rosaly's bargain squashes at the end of the season.
Peaches
I had no idea that the Pompelia root cellar still existed. And what marvelous finds from their dump! [I think dump finds are the best.]
One of my vivid early memories, perhaps my first garden memory, is of my mother visiting the sunken garden at the Manton estate (my other set of Ohio great-grandparents) when I couldn't have been more than two or three (as the house was torn down shortly after that). She and Elmer became great friends, over their shared love of gardening. I thought I had stepped into Mr. McGregor's garden and was convinced that Elmer was he. The smell of soil and "a bit of earth" has always remained with me.
I doubt there was a root cellar on the several suburban acre plot but you never know.
Thanks for conjuring some good memories!
Catherine
I've come to visit by way of ...in the pantry. I have a root cellar. The entry to it is through the basement wall. It is a cement enclosed tunnel that leads in at a downward slope. The interior walls are cement block. The roof is a cement lid that was made by framing a square of the appropriate size to act as a form. Heavy rebar was placed in the frame to make the lid solid and then cement was poured in to the form. A hole was made in the center of the cement to accommodate the vent pipe. We reach our cellar and basement through a trap door in the porch floor.
The top of the root cellar was covered with soil. My cottage garden is planted on top of it and I grow red hollyhocks around the vent pipe to disguise it.
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