Do It Yourself Root Cellaring
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Your makeshift cellar needs to have three key features:
1. It has to be cool (or preferably, cold).
2. It has to be dry.
3. It must be dark.
Heat, moisture, and light are the enemies of proper food storage. Always keep your stuff cold, dry, and in the dark.
I live in an apartment on the fifth floor of a low-rise. My first instinct for storing vegetables in the city has been to keep them in my basement storage locker. It is not heated and it's fairly easy to access. Not every building has storage though. So look around for a suitable space under a stairwell, or in a cool corner of the laundry room, basement, or garage. Similarly, if you live in a house, try an unheated garage, furnace room, basement, or shed.
You want the temperature in the space to be above freezing, but it doesn't need to be much colder than a refrigerator. Some moisture in the room where you're storing your produce is fine, and it is probably inevitable since cool places tend to be a little damp. Basically, you want to be sure to keep the goods from getting wet.831
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