If you’ve recently harvested your garden, and you want to get the most out of it, Shelley Stonebrook has written a fantastic article outlining some ways for you to preserve your food through the winter months. I’ve decided to curate this article here because storing what you grow in your garden is an important part of a solid preparedness plan.  This is of course in addition to storing freeze dried and dehydrated food.  Here is this article in full:

Do you like eating fresh, local food even during the winter months? That may be easier than you think—especially with crops that store well, such as potatoes, carrots, beets, sweet potatoes and other root vegetables. Of course, freezing and canning are great options for putting up all kinds of fresh food to enjoy during winter, but underground root cellars are great, too, and are an oft forgotten option. Here are three simple setups for underground food storage.

1. Dig a Trench Silo

Dig up root crops such as carrots, parsnips and beets and cut the tops off, leaving about 1 inch of the stems. Next, dig a trench that’s about a half foot deep and 2 feet wide. “Replant” your veggies close together at the bottom of the trench, add soil back in, and then heap soil in a small hill over the top of the trench. Mark the area with stakes so you know where you buried your goodies. Because your veggies are buried deeper in this setup than they would be if just left in the ground where they originally grew, they’ll be protected from the cold. Dig some of them whenever you need them all the way through winter into the following spring, simply replacing the soil after you harvest crops from your trench.

2. Make a Garbage Can Cellar

Dig a hole about 6 inches deeper than a standard-sized garbage can, and place the garbage can in the hole. Next, add a layer of leaves or straw to the bottom of the can, then a layer of root vegetables, then a layer of leaves/straw, etc., until the can is full. Put the lid on the can. Fill and pack the area around the can with soil, but don’t put soil right on top of the can. After that, cut some foam and plywood both to the size of the lid. Set the foam cylinder on the lid first, then the plywood cylinder. Cover the plywood with a large rock to keep it all in place. That’s it! Harvest from your garbage can cellar throughout the winter. (You can use this same method for storage apples, but keep apples and root veggies separate. Apples release ethylene gas as they ripen, which will shorten the life of other foods if stored together.)

3. Create an Old-Fashioned Root Clamp

If your region doesn’t have super-hard winters, you can use this method. To make a root clamp, mound your vegetables on a bed of straw. As you work, create horizontal tunnels of straw that extend beyond the edges of the pile (this will allow air to pass through the pile so that excess moisture won’t build up and cause rot). Next, cover the whole pile with a 6-inch layer of straw followed by a 6-inch layer of soil.

If you didn’t grow many root crops this year, get down to your farmers market and stock up. Then, make a fun weekend project of creating an underground root cellar, and you’ll be enjoying delicious, local food this winter.

You can read the original article here.

Food Storage is about more than just having a backup of calories.  It’s about taste, nutrition, ease of preparation, and peace of mind.  Make sure you get the most out of your food storage by preserving it’s nutrient value AND it’s taste.  Food is only good if you will eat it.  So make sure you are storing your food properly.