I was just watching a homesteading channel as they were building a root cellar. They did many things wrong including un-braced earth bag wall construction, excavation too close to the water table,  no venting, and awkward roof access. 

If you are building a large underground space with potential to collapse from lateral earth pressure, be sure that you are using an engineered plan made for your area and type of soil. Over-build rather than under-build in any case. As it turns out, a later video showed that their root cellar failed, luckily no one was hurt.

Any vegetables that are fermenting or rotting produce carbon dioxide that displaces any oxygen. That can be a swift way to die. All root cellars and storage rooms for food must have 2 vents, one high and one low so that the air will flow between them. In my root cellar, the door is ground level with the floor of the cellar. I always open the door wide before stepping in even though I have properly placed vents. Less importantly, but also a consideration is that ripening fruit or vegetables give off ethylene gas that can cause other foods to ripen rapidly and spoil. 

Make sure your stair access is wide and stable as you will be carrying potentially heavy loads in and out of your root cellar. Always think through how you will use a structure, and put into place anything that will increase safety under various conditions such as inclement weather. 

The other thing they did wrong was double stacking canned jars. Home canned food should never be double stacked because if a seal fails, a jar on top might hold the failed seal in place or even make a false seal. If you must double stack because of lack of space, put a put of cardboard over the bottom jars and only put lighter smaller jars on top of the cardboard. Always remove the rings after the lid is sealed and the jars have cooled. Leaving the rings on can also hide a failed seal. 

#Homesteading #GetPrepared #FoodSecurity #FoodPreservation #Harvest