A Root Cellar Without a Cellar

We don't have a basement. Most folks around here don't. But I still eat our own potatoes into March. Here's how.

Find your cold spota cool closet works too

You want somewhere dark that stays between 35 and 50 degrees: an unheated mudroom, a garage corner on an inside wall, a crawlspace hatch. Put a cheap thermometer out there for a week before you trust it.

Cure first

Potatoes and sweet potatoes need curing before storage, and they don't like the same conditions. Potatoes sit somewhere dark and cool for about two weeks so the skins toughen. Sweet potatoes want it warm, around 80 degrees, for a week. Skip curing and they rot by Christmas.

Store them apartapples away from potatoes

• Potatoes: in a cardboard box or a burlap sack, in the dark.
• Onions and garlic: in mesh bags, somewhere dry and airy.
• Apples: in a separate spot. They give off a gas that makes potatoes sprout.

Check every Sunday

One soft potato will spoil the whole bin. I pick through mine every Sunday after supper. It takes five minutes.

Grow what you eat. Keep what you grow.