> Low Input storage of food crops
Hm…you really can’t beat a clamp for low-input storage.
Herrick Kimball puts it this way:
I was reading in Nancy Bubel’s excellent book, Root Cellaring, about storing root crops in an outdoor “clamp.” The idea of keeping carrots and beets through the winter without lugging them into the basement or canning or freezing them appeals to me. So I have made one carrot clamp in my garden, as shown in [the blog post].
The clamp consists of a shallow hole (maybe 8” deep and 36” around) dug into the soil of my garden. I put a layer of leaves from my yard into the bottom. In the center I stood up a bundle of dried goldenrod stalks. Around the base I placed four beets and a bunch of carrots that I had just dug from the garden. Over the vegetables I placed more leaves, along with some straw I had on hand. Then I heaped a lot of soil over it all and smoothed it off.
Peasant and native people throughout history have stored various foods in such clamps. I think I am something of a peasant. Hopefully my clamp will work.