What have done towards your prep?

[Straight Shooter]

The 30 kilo tubs arrived 20 off .....10 are filled .....potatoes ( Maris piper ) will fill the rest by Friday .....sugar snap carrots , swede , turnips , and some beetroot .......lost one cucumber and one tomato plant ( don’t know why ? ) the cabbage and cauliflower are going great guns in the big poly tunnel ...especially in the hydroponics set up ...saying that all the garden seems really good ....picking sugar snap peas ! The runner beans seemed to have slowed down a bit ..........charge on !

[Straight Shooter]

The aquaponics setup is ready to fire up this coming weekend , all the clay balls have been washed and both grow beds are filled.....ran some more tests on the fill and empty cycles , some tuning to get the timing right , will turn the pump down and turn down the gate valve if needs be , adding the fish this coming Sunday then let it run for a week or two .....then get planting ! .

Removed the onions I planted last November ....stringing them up tomorrow then hanging them in the shed ....great crop and good size too . Going to plant more onion sets and fill more tubs with more veggies .

Wild child and I been weeding last two days ...........I said “ if he keeps looking at your arse I’m going to go up there and rip his f..king head off ! The dirty bastard ! “ .....she leaps upright .....who .....where ? .....him over there....I don’t see anyone ! She splutters looking all about ......are you bloody blind ! Him there ...he has not took his eyes off you for the past hour ......WHO ......I pointed to the scarecrow ......there is something really seriously wrong with you.....idiot .

Made a start on the finishing coat on the grandsons place , will get it all finished within the coming weeks.

Growing poly tunnels are going big time excellent results on all three, hydroponics are fabulous over and beyond my expectations, tomatoes on the test rig are huge and starting to turn red ! And plenty of them .

The rhubarb has gone nuts ......wine time I think .......bloody loads of it .

Gooseberries ......bloody loads of them ......redcurrants , blackcurrants, raspberries are looking excellent! All is well here at the homestead......very happy with what’s coming out of the ground ....all the work is paying dividends .

[Straight Shooter]

The hydroponics is now up and running........just one more elevation to coat up at the grandsons place , if the weather holds will get that done tomorrow , just the old house left to Finnish coat up three elevations , one new window to fix and four dg units and then I’m done ! ......then it’s SS time yes my stuff ! And there is a fair bit to get done but nothing heavy which is a nice change , a big faraday cage for a start and some brewing and fire that still up I made months back ......fix bayonets ! . Straight

[Straight Shooter]

Been thinking of a bigger root cellar for a while now , the existing ones are small and simply not big enough to hold the crops we grow, so I intend to dig out some ground and build a purpose built store that I can get the temperature down to 40 f and maintain it , one of the problems on my ground is water .....so I will use it as a positive ....a coolant ! Will get started within the next few weeks ......ready to receive lodgers .

[Mortblanc]

SS I don't think you are going to be able to hit and maintain 40f unless you are digging into a permafrost layer.

Most caves and underground water sources in temperate regions don't vary much from 50f-56f.

Safe temp in most refrigerators is 38f so you are shooting for 2 degrees f above the present refrigeration technology.

Being from the southern US, where there was no way they would cool efficiently, my experiences with "root cellers" has been in the opposite direction, we used them to keep things from freezing during the winter months.

Any natural cooling we got was from "spring houses". Small buildings made from stone that were situated on top of springs were they surfaced. Some foods were kept in containers in the cool water and other foods were kept on shelves on the walls. Temps never went much below 50f, but it felt cool in our 90-100f+ daily summer temps.

[Straight Shooter]

Thanks for the pointers MB .......50 is more realistic by the looks , which would work for me .......looking at a 10ft x 8ft at a minimum and completely covered in earth , 9” pot blocks with a concrete cast roof is the way I am thinking of going ......any other ideas pal ? Would be welcomed .

[Mortblanc]

Just the normal common sense stuff SS.

8x10 is a BIG cellar. You might consider two smaller units.

Use the north slope of a hill. Keep the berm in the shadows. Definitely not the south or west slope.

Dig deep, you are recreating a cave. It takes a good bit of dirt to recreate being underground. In my area we have a one meter frost line. Less cover than that is subject to outside temp variations. If you pile a meter of dirt top and sides you should reach stability. The frost line in your area is the goal for depth of dirt.

Slope the floor to the door so that it will be self draining. If you have ground water it is likely that in wet weather there would be seepage.

So dig deep, build your cinder block walls, waterproof on the outside. Back fill with coarse gravel for drainage and cover with the dirt you removed for the excavation.

8x10 is a pretty big span for a home built concrete roof, you will need pillars or rebar or both and you are going to have a heavy load with a meter of dirt on top. That is why I suggested two small units rather than one large one.

It might also be easier to talk a neighbor with a small JCB to dig a 2 meter wide slot trench now and another latter rather than come over and dig a huge pit for two days.

[Straight Shooter]

That’s good advice MB .....so that is what I will do ....two smaller (bin) types makes more sense , we have our own mini digger ( 1.5 ton ) so I can have some playtime cutting the footprint out very easy every external face will have a DPM covering and back filled as you describe .....I will make a start within weeks and update the progress .

[Skean Dhude]

You guys should do this for a living. There are plenty of us without your skills doing the same things with varying results.

[bigpaul]

I was under the impression SS was, I thought he had some sort of smallholding?? I may be completely wrong.