Some helpful Web sites include: 

• http://waltonfeed.com/old/cellars.html 
• http://www.organicgardening.com (Type "root cellar" into their search engine)

SCIENCE

• Part of planning a root cellar is planning your garden. Begin by making a list of the vegetables and fruits you want to include in your root cellar. Find out what each vegetable needs to promote healthy growth. Most vegetables can be planted several times or planted in the same area another vegetable was harvested from. For example, the nitrogen left in the soil from peas and beans is beneficial to cabbages and kale. Parsnips and brussels sprouts have the best flavor after a light frost. Each vegetable has its own needs, and each has a peak harvesting period. 
• Don't forget the flowers during the growing season! Flowers? Yep. If you are growing cucumber, pumpkins, or strawberries, you'll need bees to pollinate. Plant nectar-producing flowers like borage, sunflowers, and clover around them. Chrysanthemums help reduce nematodes, especially when planted with tomatoes. Geraniums are known to deter cabbageworms, corn earworms, and Japanese beetles. What a wonderful way for God to take care of our vegetables and give us a thing of beauty at the same time!
• Once you've harvested, you'll have to plan where to store your vegetables in your root cellar. For example, you'll want to keep your apples and potatoes away from each other as the apples give off a gas which encourages potatoes to sprout.
• You can also study why the lower temperatures and higher humidity of a root cellar preserves fruits and vegetables. What happens if the food gets too cold or hot, or too wet or dry?
• Although root cellars are for fruits and vegetables, are there methods that can be used to preserve other foods? Are there some foods that don't require any preservation?

HISTORY

Do some research to see if you can learn about different food preservation and storage techniques that have been used throughout history.

VOCABULARY

There is a little bit of lingo that goes along with root cellars. Do you know some of these words? Biodiversity, interplant, decay, mulch, ventilation, compost, humidity, bushel, frost, circulation, condensation, ripe, temperature.

God takes care of all our needs. Springtime and harvest, summer and winter.

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Paula Miller is a children's author, freelance writer, and homeschooling mom. She and her husband Travis live in south central Minnesota with their 4 sons. You can read more about Paula's Faces in History Series for children 7 and up by visiting www.paulajmiller.com

This article was originally published in the Sep/Oct '07 issue of Home School Enrichment Magazine. For more details, visit http://HomeSchoolEnrichment.com