That's it. No longer bothering with the coolers in and out from deck to utility room, back to deck. Tossed the last of them and brought in a zip-lock bag of the "freezer sauerkraut"
When I began burying garden plants in the beds at the end of the season, I learned something about cabbage. I could pull a plant and drop it in a trench with a pile of other garden plants and cover this with 8" of soil. If I dug into the bed the first of April, cabbage leaves would still be green! Warmer weather brought quick decomposition but, wow, the plants are sure geared to survive winter.
Awhile, anyway
. I brought up another Buttercup from the basement, yesterday.
Conditions down there aren't quite right but in recent years, I've learned that "curing" may be every bit as important as storage. Of course, that process requires its own set of proper conditions. Since warm and dry followed by cold and dry are the simplest part of it, I am dependent on the outdoors in the fall. Other than shelter under the carport roof and protection from freezing, I haven't done much to promote squash curing so far.
Once down in the basement storage room, things are fairly static and late February is about as late as they can last in those conditions. There are still several looking okay.
A big problem was the basement shelves themselves. I had never used those unpainted board shelves for anything. Never had such a large harvest of winter squash so they fit on the painted shelves along with a basket or two of onions. Those other shelves look like they proved themselves a problem.
Shelves characterize the basement and garage at this address. The previous, 40 year resident was a radio buff and once owned a radio shop. I don't know that he used that storage room for radio parts but I now have unused shelving and peg boards on all walls in basement and garage! Too much for ...
Steve
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