Build a Root Cellar

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DRAWING: DAN BICKNELL
This root cellar was made from damaged septic tanks.

Now that the growing season is in full force, most of us are — once again — faced with the problem of just what to do with the mountains of vegetables our gardens keep producing. Of course, one of the best places to store the “keeper crops” is a root cellar (one that’s freeze proof, watertight, and able to maintain a cool year-round temperature). And — of course, again — most folks figure that in order to create an earthy vegetable bin, you generally need a hefty hillside to carve the “cave” out of…and a ready supply of cash to pay for building materials.

But suppose — like me — you’re a flatland homesteader who’s got barely enough money on hand to cover the bills. Does that mean you can’t have a root cellar? Nope, because if you do what I did, you can easily create your own durable underground vegetable storer — for less than $200 — even if your farmstead hasn’t got a rise higher’n a gopher’s mound! Read on to learn how to build a root cellar affordably and easily.

Building a Root Cellar

I live in the Comanche Basin north of Billings, Montana, where the land is as flat as a pancake and as devoid of natural building materials as it is of hills. Still, I was determined to be as self-sufficient a farmer as I could be, which meant that somehow I had to construct a root cellar.

Unfortunately, no brilliant ideas for how to do this readily volunteered themselves. But one day I happened to notice a local construction company lowering a precast concrete box into a large hole in the ground … and suddenly I knew how I could make a root cellar on my property!

  • Published on Jul 1, 1983
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