We are exploring the idea of digging a hole under the deck, inserting a five bucket bucket with a gamma seal and covering it with dirt to be consistant with the rest of the area. We considered digging a hole for a garbage can but decided it would be too big a hole (there is only two of us). We may dig another for another five gallon pail. Other ideas, comments?

-- Leslie (***@***.net), April 11, 1999

Answers

Leslie, my brother lives in Montana...his wife's father told them they used to do something along those lines...only with just a plain old trash can. In Montana they have less bug problems than we do here in the south...but they had to dig deeper to keep things from freezing. Sounds reasonable to me.

-- Shelia (Shelia@active-stream.com), April 12, 1999.

Leslie,

I read in an old gardening book that the pit should be one foot deeper and six inches wider than your container. At the bottom of the pit lay down three or four inches of hay or leaves, place your container in the pit and fill in the space around your container with the hay/leaves. Put a couple inches layering material in your container than a layer of vegetables. Try not to let vegetables touch. I think you are supposed to continue in this manner until your container is full (or you are out of veggies) ;-) It also says that if the material you are using (leaves/hay) is dry, you should sprinkle a little water upon each layer. To store successfully for three or four months, the veggies require a temperature between 33 to 40 degrees and humidity at 80 to 90%.

I've never actually done this, so if anyone has experience that would contradict the success of this method, feel free to correct me.

I got the information from a book called Backyard Vegetable Gardening by: Hugh Wiberg. ISBN 0-88365-146-7 I doubt it's still in print. I am a major used book junkie. It's lowfat & legal!

-- Deborah (infowars@yahoo.com), April 12, 1999.

There are a couple of vegetables that require dry storage, the rest require moisture. I've read so much the last few months the info is falling out of my brain. I'll try to find info on that.

PJ in TX

-- PJ Gaenir (fire@firedocs.com), April 12, 1999.