- 6 days ago
A stone cellar, a sand box, and the right shelf can keep a year’s worth of homegrown food from spoiling. Elias Yoder explains why “cool, dark place” is not enough, and how potatoes, carrots, onions, squash, sweet potatoes, cabbage, beans, and corn each need their own corner to last through winter.
Drawing on lessons from his grandfather, he shows how a cellar is really four storage zones: cold and wet, cold and dark, cool and dry, and cool and very dry. He also covers curing crops, using slatted shelves and bins with airflow, and simple old-fashioned methods like sand storage, hanging onions and garlic, and winnowing dry beans. It is practical homestead food storage, root cellar advice, and traditional self-sufficiency knowledge for anyone trying to save the harvest.
This is useful for homesteading, garden harvest storage, root cellar organization, food preservation, and old-fashioned pantry planning. If you search for how to store potatoes, how to store carrots, how to cure sweet potatoes, or how to keep squash and onions through winter, this calm instructional guide brings the method together in one place.
Drawing on lessons from his grandfather, he shows how a cellar is really four storage zones: cold and wet, cold and dark, cool and dry, and cool and very dry. He also covers curing crops, using slatted shelves and bins with airflow, and simple old-fashioned methods like sand storage, hanging onions and garlic, and winnowing dry beans. It is practical homestead food storage, root cellar advice, and traditional self-sufficiency knowledge for anyone trying to save the harvest.
This is useful for homesteading, garden harvest storage, root cellar organization, food preservation, and old-fashioned pantry planning. If you search for how to store potatoes, how to store carrots, how to cure sweet potatoes, or how to keep squash and onions through winter, this calm instructional guide brings the method together in one place.
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00:00You grew it all. That is the part nobody can take from you.
00:04The potatoes came up heavy, the squash ran all over the garden,
00:08the carrots were the best you have had, and you carried the whole lot
00:12down into the cellar in October, feeling like a rich man.
00:16Then February came. The potatoes have got pale
00:20sprouts on them as long as your finger. The carrots have gone limp
00:23and bendy. Half the onions are soft at the neck, and the other
00:28half have started growing. There is a squash at the back that has
00:32collapsed into itself, and the smell got into everything.
00:36And you stand there doing the arithmetic on what you
00:40grew against what you are actually going to eat, and it is not
00:44a good sum. Here is what went wrong, and it was
00:48not the growing, and it was not bad luck. Every
00:52book and every video tells you to put your storage crops
00:55in a cool, dark place. That advice is not wrong
01:00exactly. It is just so
01:02far short of the truth
01:03that following it will cost you
01:05half your harvest. Because
01:08a cellar is not one place.
01:10Stand in yours with
01:11a lamp. The floor along the
01:14north wall is cold and damp
01:15enough that the stone sweats.
01:18The top shelf by the stairs
01:20is warmer and dry as a bone.
01:22Those two spots are four or five degrees apart
01:26and a world apart in damp.
01:29Your carrots want one,
01:30and your onions want the other.
01:32And put them on the same shelf
01:34because it is all one room
01:36to you, and one of them
01:38will spoil.
01:40I am Elias Yoder.
01:42I farm in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania.
01:44We have no machine anywhere
01:46in our food storage.
01:48No cold box, no freezer, no fan.
01:51What we have is a stone cellar,
01:54a sand box, some slatted shelves,
01:57and a good deal of knowing where to put a thing,
02:01and that has fed this family
02:02through every winter of my life.
02:05I gathered the whole of it into a book
02:07at EliasYoder.com.
02:10The book is the long version.
02:12If you want it, it is there.
02:14I will not mention it again.
02:17My grandfather sorted this out for me
02:19when I was twelve,
02:20and he did it without a word of instruction.
02:23That autumn,
02:25he let me put the harvest away by myself.
02:27I was proud to be asked.
02:29I carried the whole of it down,
02:32and I set it out on the long rack
02:34the way I thought was tidy,
02:36potatoes and onions and carrots and squash
02:39all together in good straight rows
02:42on the same three shelves,
02:44and I thought it looked like a store.
02:47By February, the potatoes had sprouted,
02:50the onions were soft,
02:51the carrots had gone rubbery,
02:53and the squash was the only thing that it held.
02:57He took me down with the lamp,
02:59and he did not point at any of it.
03:01He told me to put one hand flat on the stone floor
03:05along the north wall,
03:06and hold it there a moment.
03:08Then he told me to put the other hand
03:11on the top shelf by the stair door.
03:13One hand was cold and wet.
03:16The other was dry and noticeably warmer.
03:19I was standing in one room with a hand in each,
03:23and they were not the same.
03:26Then he asked me his question.
03:28He said,
03:29Which of those is the cellar?
03:31A cellar is not one place.
03:33It is four,
03:35and a crop in the wrong one
03:37has only chosen how it will spoil.
03:40And there is one more thing his question was teaching me
03:43that I did not understand for years.
03:46Those four corners are in every cellar
03:49and every basement
03:50and every cold closet in this country.
03:53They are not something you build.
03:55They are already there,
03:57made by where the cold comes in
03:59and where the warm air sits,
04:02and the whole art of this
04:03is learning to read the room you already own,
04:07rather than trying to make it into one thing.
04:10So let me give you the four corners,
04:13because once you have them,
04:14the whole of this gets simple.
04:16The first is cold and wet,
04:19as near freezing as you can get
04:21without going under it,
04:23somewhere around 32 to 40 degrees,
04:26and damp enough that things do not dry out.
04:30That is your floor against the coldest outside wall.
04:34Carrots, beets, turnips, parsnips,
04:38rutabaga, and cabbage all live here.
04:41These are roots that came out of damp ground
04:44and they will shrivel in dry air inside a fortnight.
04:48If your cellar is dry,
04:50that is exactly what the sandbox is for,
04:53and I will come to it.
04:55The second is cold and dark.
04:57Cold, but not quite so wet as the first,
05:00and above all, no light whatsoever.
05:03That is potatoes,
05:05and I keep them apart from everything else
05:07because of what they give off
05:09and what they are sensitive to.
05:1140 to 45 degrees suits them.
05:14Warmer, and they wake up and sprout.
05:16Much colder, and the starch in them turns sweet,
05:20and they go strange in the pan
05:22and will not fry properly,
05:24which is a thing people blame on the variety
05:26when it was the shelf.
05:28The third is cool and dry.
05:31Warmer than the floor, properly dry,
05:34with air moving.
05:35That is your winter squash and your pumpkins,
05:38and your sweet potatoes,
05:40which are not potatoes at all
05:41and want nothing to do with that cold floor.
05:44The fourth is cool and very dry and airy.
05:49Onions, garlic, and shallots.
05:51These want to be kept almost like firewood,
05:54hung up where air goes all round them.
05:58A fifth place worth knowing about,
06:00though it is not in the cellar at all.
06:03Cool, dry, dark, and sealed,
06:06for your beans and your dried corn,
06:09and anything else that went in bone dry.
06:12That can be a shelf in a back room,
06:15and it wants no damp near it whatsoever.
06:18Now, before any of that,
06:21the part that decides everything,
06:23and that most people skip.
06:25Curing.
06:27Curing is letting a crop toughen its own skin
06:30before it goes into store.
06:32What happens is the skin thickens,
06:35the little nicks and scrapes from the fork
06:37heal themselves over,
06:39and the crop settles into a kind of sleep.
06:42A cured potato will keep four times as long
06:46as one that went straight from the row into a bin.
06:49This is not fussiness.
06:51It is the single largest thing you can do.
06:54And here is what nearly everybody gets wrong.
06:57Three crops cure three different ways,
07:01and using one method for all of them
07:03is why people lose their sweet potatoes every year.
07:08Potatoes cure cool.
07:10Lay them out in a single layer,
07:12out of the light,
07:13somewhere around 50 to 60 degrees,
07:16with some damp in the air,
07:18and leave them a good two weeks.
07:20Then move them to the cold dark corner
07:23for the winter.
07:25Sweet potatoes cure warm,
07:27and this is the one that surprises people.
07:30They want it hot,
07:31up around 80 degrees,
07:33and humid for a week or two.
07:36A warm room,
07:37a spare corner near the stove,
07:39a closed shed on the sunny side in September.
07:44Curing sweet potatoes in a cold cellar
07:46is the commonest mistake there is,
07:49and it is why yours went hard and tasteless in December.
07:53And once cured,
07:55they are stored warmer too,
07:57around 55 to 60,
07:59and they must never go below 50 at all.
08:03Cold ruins a sweet potato.
08:06Winter squash cures warm and dry,
08:10the same warmth as sweet potatoes,
08:12for a week or two,
08:13and then it wants the cool, dry shelf.
08:17Onions and garlic cure differently again.
08:20They want warm, dry, and windy
08:23for two or three weeks,
08:25until the necks are papery
08:27and will not weep when you squeeze them,
08:29and then cool and dry for the winter.
08:33And whatever you cure,
08:35lay it in a single layer
08:36and do not let the pieces touch,
08:39and never wash any of it.
08:42Brush the dirt off dry with your hand
08:44once it has dried.
08:46Water on a skin you are trying to toughen
08:48is working directly against you.
08:52One more word on curing,
08:54and then we move on.
08:55Give it air.
08:57Whatever you are curing,
08:59the enemy is a still pocket of damp air
09:02sitting against a skin.
09:03Lay things on slats or wire
09:07or an old screen door
09:08across two boxes
09:10rather than flat on a table,
09:12so air can get underneath as well as over.
09:15And if you have nothing but a table,
09:18turn everything over halfway through.
09:21Now, crop by crop,
09:24and I will keep it short
09:25because you have the four corners already.
09:28Potatoes.
09:29Cured then into the coldest dark corner.
09:33Light is the enemy,
09:35and I mean that seriously.
09:37A potato left in the light
09:39makes a green color under the skin,
09:41and that green is a substance
09:43that will make a person properly ill
09:45in any quantity,
09:47and it does not cook out.
09:49If you find green on one,
09:52cut it away generously
09:53or throw the potato out.
09:55We keep an old bed sheet
09:58thrown right over the whole rack,
10:00which costs nothing
10:01and settles the matter.
10:04Sweet potatoes.
10:06Once cured,
10:07into bins with air able to get to them.
10:10Before they go in,
10:12run your hand down each one
10:13and check the thin, pointed end.
10:16If an end is soft or bends,
10:19snap it off.
10:20That end will go first
10:22and take the whole root with it,
10:24and it heals over on its own,
10:26once broken.
10:28Winter squash.
10:30Onto a dry shelf,
10:32not touching,
10:33stem left on.
10:35A squash with the stem knocked off
10:38will not keep,
10:39so use those first.
10:41Put the small and the less ripe ones
10:43on the top shelf,
10:45and eat down through them,
10:47saving the big heavy ones for spring
10:49because they are the ones
10:51that will still be sound in March.
10:55Carrots, Beets, and Turnips.
10:57Cut the tops off close,
10:59because leaves left on
11:02will pull the moisture
11:03straight out of the root.
11:05Then pack them in a box of just
11:07damp sand, or damp leaves,
11:10or damp sawdust,
11:12in layers,
11:13not touching each other.
11:15Set the box on the cold floor.
11:18Done that way,
11:19they come out in April,
11:21as crisp as the day they were pulled,
11:23and there is no machine on earth
11:25doing it better.
11:28A note on the bins themselves,
11:30since it matters more than people think.
11:33Whatever you store in
11:35wants air through it.
11:37Slatted crates, wire baskets,
11:40wooden boxes,
11:41paper sacks,
11:42or plastic bins with holes
11:45drilled in the sides.
11:46What you must not use
11:48is anything sealed.
11:50A plastic bag or a closed tub
11:53will hold the crop's own breath
11:55against it, and turn it slimy
11:58in a month.
11:59And that is what has happened
12:00to a good many bags of carrots
12:03in a good many refrigerators.
12:05And do not stack bins
12:07so tight to the wall
12:09or to each other,
12:10that nothing can move between them.
12:13A hand's width, all round,
12:16is plenty,
12:17and it is the difference between
12:18a bin that keeps,
12:20and a bin that sweats.
12:23Cabbage.
12:24Cold and damp,
12:26same corner.
12:28Pull them with the root on,
12:29if you can, and hang them
12:31or lay them on a slatted shelf.
12:34They will make a smell.
12:36That is cabbage,
12:38and there is no helping it.
12:40Onions and garlic.
12:42Braid them,
12:44or net them,
12:45and hang them in the driest,
12:47airiest, coolest spot you have.
12:49And keep them well away
12:51from your potatoes.
12:53Onions and potatoes
12:54each give off something
12:56that tells the other one
12:58to wake up,
12:59and stored side by side,
13:01they will sprout each other.
13:04My twelve-year-old self
13:06learned that the hard way.
13:09Beans and corn.
13:11These want to be properly dry,
13:13and then shut away from air
13:16and damp and mice
13:17in something with a tight lid.
13:20And for the threshing,
13:22here is an old trick
13:23worth the whole video
13:25to some of you.
13:26Put your dry bean pods
13:29in a pillow case,
13:30not more than a third full.
13:32Tie the top,
13:34and whack it against a hard,
13:36flat surface.
13:37Firmly, not savagely,
13:40or you will split the beans.
13:42Fifteen good whacks,
13:44stopping to stir them about
13:46with your hand
13:46two or three times,
13:48and nearly every pod
13:50will have let go.
13:51The beans fall to the bottom,
13:54and you lift the empty shells
13:56off the top.
13:57Then take your bowl out
13:59to a doorway on a breezy day,
14:01and pour the beans slowly
14:03from one bowl into another.
14:06The wind takes the chaff
14:08and leaves the beans.
14:10That is winnowing,
14:12and it is older than any of us.
14:15The shells and the corn husks
14:17go to the chickens,
14:19who will spend a happy afternoon
14:21in them,
14:21hunting whatever you missed.
14:23And one thing about
14:25the whole cellar,
14:26rather than any crop in it.
14:29It wants a little air
14:30moving through,
14:32all winter,
14:33and a way for the damp
14:34to leave.
14:36A vent low on the cold side,
14:39and one high on the other,
14:41with screen over both
14:43against the mice,
14:44will pull a slow current
14:46through the room on its own,
14:47with no fan,
14:49and no power.
14:50A cellar shut up tight,
14:53goes stale,
14:54and everything in it
14:55goes off faster.
14:57A cellar that breathes,
14:59keeps.
15:00But air it on the right days.
15:03Open it on cool, dry days,
15:06and shut it on warm, wet ones,
15:09because warm, damp air
15:11coming into a cold room
15:13lays its water straight down
15:15on your stone,
15:16and on your crops.
15:19Now some rules that cross
15:21all of it.
15:22Eat in the right order.
15:25Everything you put away
15:27has a clock on it,
15:28and the clocks are not the same.
15:31Cabbage and the thin-skinned squash
15:33go first,
15:35then carrots and beets
15:37out of the sand,
15:38then potatoes,
15:40and the heavy hard-shelled squash,
15:42and the onions last,
15:44because those will still be sound
15:47when the garden is coming in again.
15:49Work out that order in October,
15:51and write it on a card by the stairs,
15:53and you will stop finding things in April
15:56that went by in January.
15:59Never store anything damaged.
16:02A micked potato or a bruised squash
16:05is not a storage crop.
16:07It is supper this week.
16:09Sort as you put things away,
16:12and keep the wounded ones
16:13in a separate box by the stairs.
16:15One rotten one takes the bin.
16:18Whatever has gone puts out the signal
16:20that makes its neighbors go too.
16:22So walk down there once a week with a lamp,
16:25and use your nose,
16:27and take out anything soft
16:29before it can talk to the rest.
16:31And keep the mice out by keeping them out,
16:34not by putting poison beside your food.
16:37Hardware cloth over the vents and the window,
16:41a tight door,
16:42everything in bins or buckets
16:44with lids that seat properly,
16:46and a barn cat who is allowed in.
16:49Poison in a food store is a thing
16:51I will not recommend
16:52and would not have in my own cellar.
16:56Now the plane limits,
16:57because I am not going to pretend
16:59every house can do this.
17:01If you have no cellar,
17:03you are not finished.
17:04A north-facing closet on an outside wall,
17:08an unheated stair landing,
17:10a bulkhead,
17:11a garage in a cold climate
17:13as long as it does not freeze,
17:15an insulated box sunk
17:17in the ground outside,
17:19or an old barrel buried on its side
17:21with straw over it.
17:23That last one
17:24is what a great many families used
17:26before there were cellars at all,
17:28and it works.
17:30A word for those in a warm climate as well,
17:33because I hear from you.
17:34If your winters do not get properly cold,
17:37a true root cellar is not going to happen,
17:40and I will not pretend otherwise.
17:42What does work is choosing crops that suit you.
17:47Sweet potatoes and winter squash
17:49and onions and garlic
17:51all keep at cool room temperature
17:53and will serve you
17:55where carrots and potatoes will not.
17:57Grow toward your climate
17:59rather than fighting it.
18:01And some things will not store
18:03no matter what you do.
18:05Sweet corn, tomatoes, peppers,
18:08summer squash, and greens
18:10are not storage crops
18:12and never were.
18:14Those get eaten, dried,
18:16or put up in jars,
18:17and that is a different job.
18:20There is no scheme in any of this,
18:23and nobody arranged anything.
18:25The money simply runs the other way.
18:28There are shelving systems
18:29and cooling units and freezers
18:31and buckets sold for this work,
18:34and they are real goods,
18:35and the people selling them
18:37are not hiding a thing.
18:39It is only that nobody makes a living
18:41telling you a wooden box of damp sand
18:44on a cold floor
18:46will keep carrots better than a machine will,
18:48so nobody says it,
18:50and a thing nobody has a reason to say
18:52gets forgotten inside of one generation.
18:56And keep a note of what you did.
18:58Not a ledger,
19:00just a card on a nail
19:01with the date you put each crop away
19:04and what corner it went in.
19:06Next April,
19:07when something has kept beautifully
19:09and something else has not,
19:11that card tells you why.
19:13And by the third year,
19:15you will know your own seller
19:17better than any video can teach you.
19:20My grandfather kept his figures
19:22in a little book,
19:23and I keep mine on the back of a feed bag,
19:26and that has been worth more to this family
19:29than anything anybody ever told us.
19:32So here is what I would have you do this week,
19:35and it costs about $4.
19:37Buy two small thermometers,
19:40the plain dial kind that need no power.
19:43Put one on the floor
19:45against your coldest outside wall,
19:47and put the other on the highest shelf
19:50at the warm end of the same room.
19:52Leave them a day.
19:54Then go and read them both.
19:57You are going to find out
19:58that you have been calling one room
20:00by one name for years,
20:02and it was never one room at all.
20:06Tell me in the comments
20:07what county you are in
20:09and how deep your ground freezes.
20:11And when you read those two thermometers,
20:14come back and tell me the two numbers.
20:16I would like to see how far apart they are,
20:19because I have a notion
20:20some of you are going to be surprised
20:23by the spread.
20:24Next time I want to go back to the beginning
20:27of the whole business,
20:28because the finest way to have food next winter
20:31costs nothing at all,
20:33and it is sitting inside the very things
20:36you have just put away.
20:37Saving your own seed properly,
20:39so the crop that fed you this year
20:42feeds you again next year
20:43without a dollar going out.
20:45That is one I have owed you a while,
20:47and it is the next one.
20:49A cellar is not one place,
20:51it is four,
20:52and a crop in the wrong one
20:54has only chosen how it will spoil.
20:56The people who built this country
20:58with their hands knew that,
20:59and we are only just starting to remember it.