Above Ground Root Cellars & Other No-Dig Food Storage
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Keeping Local Food on the Table in Warm Climates
Guest section by Paula Bellman, an experienced southern gardener.
I live in zone 9, SW Louisiana. Because we’re so far south, we’re considered sub-tropical.
Water Table Too High for a Root Cellar
We have a very high water table. Depending on where in SW Louisiana you live, you could dig down about 2 feet and you’d hit water. People do not have basements here, nor root cellars, for this particular reason.
Year Round Gardening
We are able to garden 12 months out of the year. Typically our crops in the late fall/early winter are:
- sweet potatoes
- cabbages
- turnips
- kohlrabi
- daikon radish
- regular radishes
- beets
- chards
- kale
- mustard
- turnip greens
Without artificial light, chickens reduce egg production dramatically in December/January. Sunrise for us is around 7:00am and sunset would be around 5:30.
Citrus fruits are typically ripe around Christmas, though some mandarin type of oranges will ripen earlier than that. Blood oranges will ripen in later January, and lemons can come anytime between November and January.
In the early spring, we are able to harvest the tender lettuces like Bibb, Romaine, and leaf. We also harvest hardier greens like chard, mustard and turnip greens, broccoli, and cauliflower.
We continue to get cabbages and root crops, but also new potatoes, red and yellow onions. Loquats come into season around the first part of March and strawberries can ripen anytime between February and April. I consider early spring to be mid-February thru end of March.
When the Heat Sets In
About mid-April, it really starts to heat up. The tomatoes, cucumber, and melon plants jump up in growth and set fruit. We can usually begin harvesting the summer squash around the 1st part of May.
Once the real heat hits, the squash vine beetles set in. You can’t get any more squash, unless you use alternate means of pest control, which I do not.
June is hot and humid with highs sometimes in the upper 90s and high humidity. Peaches and plums come ripe in late May or early June. Sweet corn comes early June along with sweet peppers, early tomatoes, and blueberries. We can or freeze tomatoes.
Cantaloupes and watermelons come in June. June is my favorite month in the garden. So much delicious produce. Cucumbers will continue through July, but by then they are bitter.
During the hottest part of the summer (July, August, September) all you’re going to get is okra, peppers, and eggplants.
Figs become ripe around the 4th of July. The crop ripens basically all at once and will spoil quickly if not picked. The birds and the wasps like them, too. We typically make fig preserves out of them, but some people will can them whole.
If we’re lucky and we don’t get a hurricane, we can get a second crop of tomatoes, cucumbers, and cantaloupes in October. By October, the bitter greens are coming back in as well as turnips and sweet potatoes.
See “Summer Gardens – Dealing with High Temperatures in the Garden” for gardening tips from Texas.
Food Storage Options for Warm, Humid Conditions
Food storage for fall/winter crops consist of cold storage like a working fridge on your patio or carport. I store cabbages and onions in a dorm fridge for a good 6 months after the growing season with no problems.
We really can’t do any type of room temp storage. It’s much too humid to leave things outside to dry/cure. Even things like fermented veggies need to go in the fridge pretty quick, or they spoil and grow mold.
Our food storage options for summer veggies are: water bath canning, pressure canning, freezing, and some fermenting, like salsa.
I freeze cantaloupe and honeydew melons. Watermelons can be de-seeded and pureed for juice to make jello or sorbet. Freeze peppers whole or sliced.
I usually cook down eggplant and okra and freeze in Ziploc bags. Okra and tomatoes cooked together with onions and hot peppers is a welcome addition to a winter dinner or added to a gumbo.
I hope this post provides you with plenty of ideas to help keep local food on the table longer no matter where you live.
More Food Storage Articles
- Best Non Perishable Foods (For Home Use or Donations)
- Foods to Stock Up On (for Daily Use or Emergencies)
- Food Preservation Methods – 11 Ways to Preserve Food at Home
- Browse all of our Food Storage Articles
Originally published in 2013, last updated in 2026.
I don’t know why your article is supposed to be about above ground root cellars because it seems you spend most of it trying to talk people out of it. Telling them the physics are against them instead of offering real solutions or finding a cool dark corner of their house like some sorta pack ratting gopher. And creating an unsightly mound in their yard? Really? smh.
How about instead have a conversation involving double walled construction and the advanced in spray foam insulation, and ventilation air circulation systems with humidifiers. And how about the use of geothermal to keep an above ground root cellar cooler. Help people, don’t pretend.
David, what you are proposing is NOT a root cellar, it’s a walk in cooler.
A root cellar relies on natural conduction, transferring the cool ground temperature to the storage area. It is not dependent on powered air circulation, humification, or cooling.
If you are insulating your storage area from the ground, then it is not a root cellar. If you are using electrically powered cooling, it’s a cooler, not a root cellar.
Most people searching for information on root cellars want a low cost, low tech solution. Geothermal cooling systems are not that.
For people who want mechanically cooled above ground storage at a reasonable price, I’d suggest reading the article “Build Your Own Walk In Cooler with a CoolBot Controller and A/C Unit“.
Every one of these pages is a waste of my time. I wish everything involving food storage said, “If you live in Florida and want electricity free food storage, just close this page now. You’re screwed”
Thanks for summing that up, Adam. Yes, if you live in Florida, where it is excessively hot and humid much of the year, food is not going to keep well like it would without electricity in other climates. That’s why I had my friend chime in with her extended growing schedule. I can’t change biology and climate.
I am going to try a broken freezer with a smaller Styrofoam cooler in a garage as a root cellar.
Just make sure to provide adequate ventilation.