winter storage / chill chest?

[werecat]

My sister was telling me about something she called a Chill Chest that she had read about that we could store some of our veggies in over winter next year. We have this huge old dead (compressor is shot) chest freezer along the side of Daddy's garage on the cement pad. She had suggested we clean it all out and fill it with childrens play sand and we could bury potatoes, onions, leeks, carrots, maybe some squash that sort of thing in the sand and just over winter them in the sand and just go out and get them when we need them. Has anyone else ever heard of this? Anyone know of a site that has proper directions?

[Lavandula Girl]

Werecat - I've seen them buried... here's a site - www.ehow.com/how_5806_make-deep-freeze.html
Good luck with it!

[bluelacedredhead]

You mean there's life for that broken down one that I've got sitting beside the garage other that being used as a workbench or a giant garbage container??
Good Link LG, TY

[johno]

We've been talking about doing that for years, just haven't got around to it...

[dirtundernails]

Another way is one I saw in Backwoods Home. Run your cold water through copper tubing that encircles the inside of the freezer and then into your house supply. Every time you run water, it goes through that pipe first and chills the contents. The chest type is best, as cold air will stay at the bottom when you open it. I will find out who said it and more info if you want, just sparked my memory of that article. He used it for a refrigerator.

[blackberrygrl]

Are there any other ways people without basements or root cellars can store vegetables? I live on a slab with no garage space and a small backyard.

[Silentmeow]

Wow, this couldn't be better timed! We just hauled our old chest freezer out of the basement and put our new upright in it's place. We were trying to figure out what to do with the old one. This project will give my DH something to engineer!

[Imp]

I think if I did that, I would use some chopped straw or coarse dry sawdust/wood chip sort of stuff- to make it easier to paw about in and get things out.

[Emerald]

I'm with Imp on this one- I would put the damp sand with veggies in it into buckets or something so they would be easier to pull out and get at- my aunt would put a layer of together of several kinds of veggies instead of bins of each if she didn't have the room- like one layer would have several carrots, a couple of parsnips, a few potatoes and maybe a turnip or beet or two- but I do know that she did have a bin with just potatoes in the bottom area of the barn that didn't freeze.
The Mother Earth News that I just got has a diagram of just old trash bins (the big ones) with holes in the bottom for drainage and then they are buried in the ground with just a small amount on top of the ground - around the top there are stacked bricks and topped with either the lid or plywood then they they just cover the whole thing with straw- all the veggies are layered in the bin- If you had the room you could put up about 2 or 3 in a row with a different veg in each one. Since it is in this month's magazine I can't link to it yet.

[virraszto]

I'll tell you how my grandparents stored veggies back in the old days. They would dig a hole in the ground and throw down some straw. Then they'd alternate, straw, veggie,straw, veggie, etc. Or, they would get a wood barrel and layer the same way.

I'd give anything to have a root cellar. :)

V.