In this video, the founder of Aanandaa Permaculture Project, Manisha Lath Gupta shares her experience of making a root cellar as a part of her sustainable house. Root cellars are popular in western countries with temperate climates. When the external temperature is below freezing, a root cellar provides the perfect weather to store produce to tide over the winter months. With high humidity levels, these cellars created a refrigerator-like environment for storage.
However, in tropical and sub tropical climates like where Aanandaa is located, a root cellar behaves quite differently. IT helps to create an ambient temperature which is more stable, and does not fluctuate as much as the external atmospheric temperature.
A root cellar needs to be slightly humid and dark to store vegetables and fresh produce. Therefore, the second half of our cellar is closed, absolutely dark and has a floor made of packed earth. This is where we store our potatoes. turmeric, ginger, colocasia crops. We also keep our vegetables and fruits here for a few days, before we decide what to do with them. It is important to keep the fruit and vegetables separately, as the ethylene gas released from the ripening fruits can spoil the vegetables prematurely.
It is also important to have good ventilation in teh dark cellar, so that air keep circulating and ejecting the ethylene gas out of the space. Temperature is automatically maintained by virtue of being under the ground. And lastly humidity can be increased by doing a wet mop on the packed earth floor.
If you are interested in knowing more about how to build a cellar, or about how to make a sustainable house, you can book a SUstainable House tour on www.aanandaa.com/house-tour.