The following is an excerpt from Sam Knapp’s new book Beyond the Root Cellar (Chelsea Green Publishing December 2024) and is printed with permission from the publisher. You can purchase a copy in our store (subscribers always get 20% off all books).
Postharvest handling
Pulling crops from the field isn’t the end of the story! There are additional steps between harvesting, storing, and eventually selling (or eating) our crops to ensure their quality in storage and that our customers (or our families) are happy. These include postharvest tasks like trimming, curing, washing, and grading. Some of these steps are purely for aesthetics or convenience. Other steps, like curing particular crops, will improve both quality and longevity in storage.
Trimming
For the classic root crops, trimming is as simple as removing the leaves. There are several reasons to do this prior to storage. Even though many people enjoy eating and cooking with leaves from root crops—for example, beet and turnip greens—these aren’t hardy in storage and quickly become sources of rot. While you can store crops whole for a short time, the leaves will become unattractive after only a couple weeks. Another reason for trimming off leaves is logistical; leaves add weight and bulk! Why move leaves around and make space for them in storage when it’s not necessary?
Trimming root vegetables is much like trimming fingernails. Just as you want to avoid cutting to the quick, you don’t want to cut into the vegetable.
One last reason to trim off leaves is to prevent them from acting as conduits for moisture loss. When I lived in Sweden, the farmers I worked for had me cutting firewood in the spring. They told me that by felling live silver birch just after leaf-out, when “the leaves are the size of a mouse’s ear,” and by leaving the trees on the ground for several weeks before cutting and splitting, they can ensure they’ll have dry wood by winter. (You’ll see this technique mentioned in Lars Mytting’s book Norwegian Wood.) Trees don’t die immediately after felling, just like vegetables don’t die right after they’re harvested. Those tiny, mouse-ear leaves grow to full size—even on felled trees—as they begin to photosynthesize and transpire water, which under normal circumstances would be replaced by groundwater via the roots. Without that connection, however, the water conduits in the wood are sucked dry, and the wood gets a head start on drying before it’s even cut and split. Leaves left on root crops after harvest do the same thing, but in this case they pull moisture from the still-attached stems and roots. Trimming off the leaves before storage helps prevent our root veggies from becoming desiccated and floppy.
Ideally, you should leave only the smallest stubs of petioles—the thin stalks that connect the leaves to their stems—behind when trimming. (Even root crops have stems, albeit shrunken ones on the very tops of the root crowns.) The cut petiole surfaces dry out quickly, preventing further moisture loss and stopping pathogens from entering the main root tissue. Cutting too deeply will expose vulnerable inner stem or root tissue. Such cuts tend to leak more moisture and provide direct entry points for pathogens. It doesn’t necessarily spell disaster for that veggie, but an errant cut increases the chances that something will go wrong in storage. One exception to this rule is rutabagas. The stems on rutabagas are more elongated than on other root crops—think of the cylindrical and (usually) purple part that extends upward from the root, growing whorls of leaves. It’s usually OK to cut into rutabaga stems and even root tissue when trimming. Another exception is allium crops like onions and garlic. With these crops, the portions we eat are actually swollen leaves, so we trim leaves above the swell of the bulbs.
Rutabaga stems are more elongated than those of most other root crops. Instead of trimming just leaves, you can trim the stems down near the root crown. Photos by Phil Knapp.
With some crops, trimming can also make washing easier, make the veggies more attractive to customers, and help remove damaged portions prior to storage. I admittedly do this with root brassicas, trimming off portions damaged by cabbage root maggots. I’ve found that their cut surfaces dry quickly and hold up moderately well in storage. With celeriac, I try to remove the outermost layers of the tangled root mat prior to washing. The same goes for rutabagas, which have lots of small root hairs that tend to hold onto soil and make washing more difficult.
Onions and garlic usually require additional cleaning and trimming after harvest and curing. This involves removing the outermost, dirty scales, the leftover tops, and the dried roots. Depending on the amounts you grow, this can be very time consuming. On many farms, onion cleaning is saved as a rainy-day activity during the fall. Though the process isn’t quick, it is simple: Slough off the dirty outer scales and trim back the roots and tops. One machine that can speed things up is an onion topper, which consists of spinning cylinders that slowly propel onions along while pinching and removing their tops. (This machine will also remove some fingers if you’re not careful.) While toppers will take off some roots and outer scales, most remain behind. There are also dry brush tables that work much like toppers, with brushes in place of cylinders. These effectively remove dirty outer scales and some roots left behind during earlier processing.
Precooling
I don’t know many storage farmers who precool their veggies, but it’s worth mentioning as a possibility. (Instead, most storage farmers rely on refrigeration systems in their storage rooms to cool crops down to storage temperatures.) Precooling usually refers to rapidly lowering the temperature of vegetables after harvest to extend storage life. With storage vegetables in particular, lowering the temperature quickly slows down the consumption of sugars and production of badtasting compounds. For many crops, reducing their temperatures below 40°F (4°C) as quickly as possible after harvest reduces problems with storage rots. Precooling can also reduce the cooling load on your refrigeration system and ensure that crops already in storage remain cold. There are special pieces of precooling equipment like hydrocooling tanks, precooling tunnels, and carton coolers. If the weather is warm around harvest time and you’re struggling to lower vegetables’ internal temperatures quickly enough, these are options to consider. Other strategies include avoiding harvesting on warm days (or at warm times of day), harvesting later in the season when outdoor temperatures are lower, and purchasing a refrigeration system with enough power to handle the cooling load.
Curing
Curing is a general term describing the extra steps that prepare certain vegetables for storage. Most veggies don’t need any curing prior to storage. The few that do include winter squash and pumpkins, potatoes, sweet potatoes, and alliums like onions, garlic, and shallots. The conditions needed for curing and the physiological changes that occur are different for each vegetable/group.
For winter squash and pumpkins, curing helps to harden their skin, heal wounds, dry down their stems, and turn starches into sugars like sucrose and glucose. (The correct and lively term for that bit of plant tissue connecting a squash fruit to the vine is peduncle.) In some climates, winter squash and pumpkins can cure in the field, but in some regions, farmers need to create the appropriate conditions. Holding squash at 75 to 85°F (24 to 29°C) and 50 to 70 percent relative humidity (RH) for a week or two usually completes the curing process and improves their performance in long-term storage. (Note that not all types of squash need curing, and a separate curing step isn’t necessary in all climates.)
Taking advantage of a sunny, warm afternoon to dry winter squash at Offbeet Farm before they go inside to finish curing. Photo by Phil Knapp.
Though potatoes and sweet potatoes are from entirely different plant families, the physiology behind their curing is similar. Both crops go through a process of suberization while curing, whereby a waxy protective layer forms over the skin and wounds. This layer prevents moisture loss and protects against infection from bacteria and fungi. Common wisdom says that skins thicken during the curing process, but in reality, the outermost skin layers just attach more firmly to the tissue underneath. While potatoes can cure under a range of conditions, a temperature between 54 and 59°F (12 and 15°C) is best for speed and preventing pathogen growth. The humidity should be high, at about 80 percent. Sweet potatoes require a similar humidity but much warmer temperatures, ideally between 82 and 86°F (28 and 30°C).
Garlic and onions, including shallots, can cure once they’ve fully matured and have entered a state of dormancy. Warm and dry conditions over several weeks dry out their outermost scales, which become hard and flaky. Although they can cure in a wide range of temperatures and humidities, optimal conditions range from about 80 to 90°F (27 to 32°C) and 50 to 70 percent RH. The dry outermost layers protect onions and garlic from water loss and pathogens. In both onions and softneck garlic, it’s also important that the necks dry and contract during the curing process to prevent the entry of pathogens.
When I was first starting out, curing seemed a bit like alchemy to me. I read the advice from university extension services, but I didn’t fully grasp the importance of curing to success in long-term storage. My first failure came with onions, which I grew for my winter CSA during the first year of Root Cellar Farm. I started them from seed and diligently tended them under borrowed grow lights in the living room of my rental house. (My neighbors and landlords definitely thought I was growing something else.) I planted the seedlings and nurtured them all summer long, and they grew into beautifully plump bulbs I was proud of. Had I sold them at a fall farmers market, it would have capped off a successful first season. Instead, I botched their preparations for storage, leaving them too long in the field during a wet fall and inadequately curing them. My CSA customers received less than half of their onions that year because the bulbs grew mold around their necks and rotted from the top downward in storage. In subsequent years, I learned to harvest onions earlier to allow them more time to dry under fans in the garage. I also became cautious of rainfall on onions after their tops fell, a caution I harbor to this day. (My caution may not be entirely warranted, though, as other farmers leave onions out in intermittent rain without issue after tops have fallen.)
Winter squash almost never cure outdoors at my farm in Fairbanks, Alaska. Instead, I bring them indoors and cure them at 80°F (27°C) and 50 to 60 percent RH for about a week. Photo courtesy of Sam Knapp.
Curing needs can vary widely from year to year and from place to place. I faced some steep learning curves after moving from Michigan’s Upper Peninsula to interior Alaska, and I needed to adapt my curing techniques to the new climate. My biggest challenge with curing in Alaska has been with winter squash. In Michigan, winter squash and pumpkins usually grew to full maturity on the vine—corky stems (ahem, peduncles), firm and waxy skins, ground spots, and so on—but in Alaska’s abbreviated season, most winter squash barely eke out maturity before frosts arrive. On top of that, the weather around harvest time in late August and early September is typically cool and wet. In Michigan, I had no issues sun-curing my winter squash, either in the field or on the dry and sunny deck. In Alaska, I have to create those conditions indoors.
Wherever you live and whatever your typical weather patterns are, you should be prepared to cure crops indoors if necessary. This can be especially tricky if you grow multiple crops that need curing, and those crops cure under different conditions. In practice, you should identify which spaces are conducive to curing and how different crops might overlap their time in those spaces. Extra spaces that can be heated and ventilated as backups will help you deal with timing problems or unusually large harvests. It’s a helpful coincidence that winter squash and pumpkins and the alliums cure in similar conditions. Many growers use greenhouses to cure these crops since warm and dry environments work for both. Heated shops and sheds can also work for onions, garlic, and squash. Most farmers I know growing sweet potatoes use their storage spaces for the curing period as well, which eliminates extra handling steps between the field and storage. It’s common for potato growers to cure potatoes either in ambient conditions (in other words, without manipulating temperature or humidity) or in their potato storage spaces, similarly to sweet potatoes.
Barrel washer 1.0 at Offbeet Farm was hand-turned using wood purlins fixed to the outside of the barrel. This was a very cheap solution for the washing needs of a budding, cash-strapped farm. Photo by Sam Knapp.
You also need to plan out your curing setups and equipment. Airflow is key for all curing crops. The constantly flowing air removes and distributes moisture, keeps temperatures even, and prevents buildup of gases like carbon dioxide and ethylene. Keep this in mind when you choose containers or platforms for curing. I once made the mistake of curing winter squash on plywood shelves. With the impervious plywood and inadequate fans, humidity built up underneath my squash and I had problems with rot on their undersides. Many farms, especially those at small scales, cure alliums and squash in single layers on wire racks or tables to maximize airflow across and under the crops. Some larger farms cure their onions and squash in bulk bins, either singly or in stacks. The trick here is to place fans on top of the bins, lying flat and pointing upward, to pull air up through them; it’s almost always easier to pull rather than push air through something. If the fans over the bins aren’t powerful enough, you can improve airflow in the stacks by wrapping the outsides, creating makeshift chimneys. Farms that store things like potatoes and onions in bulk piles often use perforated pipes or culverts in the piles for ventilation. Similar to aerating compost, ventilation pipes deliver fresh air to the bottoms of bulk piles to more effectively maintain temperature and control moisture.
Paddling beets from the washer, to the grading table, and to a waiting bin at Offbeet Farm. Photo by Phil Knapp.
How much ventilation is enough? As a rule of thumb, air should be moving, however subtly, at any place in a pile, stack, or bin of curing veggies. Using your hand, you can try to feel air movement under or through stacks or piles of veggies. If you’re unsure, you can also use smoke or dust to observe subtle air movement. By observing how the smoke moves—up through the bottom of a stack of bulk bins, for example—you know air is actively moving through your curing crops. If there’s not enough airflow, add more or larger fans.
Washing
When I first got into farming for long-term storage, I was surprised to learn that washing veggies upfront, prior to storage, was a viable option. Until then, I’d only ever heard that washing before storage led to poor results. “It’s perfectly all right to leave a light coating of dusty soil on the surface of your root vegetables,” write Mike and Nancy Bubel in their book, Root Cellaring. “Gently brush off excess dirt, but avoid scrubbing or washing the roots. They’ll keep better if you don’t clean them up too vigorously.” This matches most, if not all, advice I’ve read aimed at gardeners and homesteaders. But then, while learning to grow storage crops commercially, I encountered advice like this excerpt from Ruth Hazzard, Extension Educator for Farmers at UMass Amherst: “One long-standing debate is on the merits of washing carrots before placing them into storage. The decision to wash carrots before storage, or immediately before sale during winter months, is usually based on the farm’s washing facilities (heated or not) and available labor.” Clearly, there’s a disconnect between the two camps, and this discrepancy made me anxious. To wash or not to wash?
The barrel washer built by the carrot royalty of Fairbanks, Alaska, Spinach Creek Farm. Every year, they use this washer to process 30,000 to 40,000 pounds of carrots. Photo by Sam Knapp.
I now suspect that both suggestions are correct within their own context. Advice like that offered by the Bubels comes from centuries-old experience and traditions of farmers and homesteaders. Before the widespread use of electricity, fans, mechanical refrigeration, and the like, root cellars, trenches, and cold-holes were some of the only means of preserving fresh vegetables through winter. But these passive means of storage rarely maintain the best conditions for storing vegetables on their own. If temperature and humidity are difficult to regulate, it makes perfect sense to avoid any potential damage and excess moisture from washing veggies before storage. Passive root cellars are often warmer than is optimal, which can allow microbial problems to grow and fester over time. With modern winter storage facilities, farmers can easily regulate temperature, humidity, and airflow. Small bumps, nicks, and excess moisture from washing don’t matter as much because lower temperatures limit microbial growth and humidity regulation removes excess moisture. As Ruth Hazzard described, farmers now have the freedom to make decisions about washing based on their washing setups and workloads.
This is a good thing for me and other farmers who can wash veggies most efficiently in the fall! I think about a story Angus Baldwin of West Farm in Jeffersonville, Vermont, told me about trudging his veggies over a half-mile-long snowy path between an old storage shed and washing station, and I shudder. I’ve been there too. During my first winter at Root Cellar Farm in Michigan, I saved all my potato washing for winter and scrubbed them, one load at a time, in a tiny utility sink in my cold basement. That after moving the veggies down narrow stairs and back up if there was any excess after packing. That only lasted one year; after a winter of chilly and slow scrubbing, I washed everything before storage the next fall.
For many farmers, myself included, washing veggies in the fall immediately after harvest is far more feasible than during winter. At Offbeet Farm, the well is up the hill next to the house, about 500 feet from the storage building and the adjacent washing station. In the summer and fall, it’s no problem to pipe water down the hill for washing veggies, but problems arise as soon as below-freezing temperatures arrive. There’s a small water-holding tank in the storage building for handwashing and miscellaneous rinsing, but serious washing requires more water and space. In the packing side of the storage building, the interior walls and electrical fixtures aren’t entirely water-tight, and spraying water with a hose or pressure washer in the small space would be a bad idea. Anyone in a similar situation, where winter water use isn’t possible or practical, will need to wash veggies up front. Farms with spacious, heated, and water resistant facilities with water outlets and proper drains have the option to wash during the winter. They can put crops into storage dirty and clean them up as needed for packing orders.
Besides the washing setup, there are other reasons why farmers might choose either to wash storage crops alongside harvest or wait until winter. The availability of labor around harvest time is a big one. Washing crops might take up precious time you don’t have, especially in the fall when there’s already so much else to do. That’s why some farms put all their fall efforts toward harvesting, or wash as much as possible in the fall but leave some washing for the winter. On farms where winter washing isn’t possible, washing has to be part of the fall workload.
Some farmers use up-front washing as an opportunity to sanitize certain crops, such as winter squash, prior to storage to lessen the occurrence of storage rots. Janaki Fisher-Merritt at Food Farm in Wrenshall, Minnesota, has recently started sanitizing fall-washed carrots to combat fungal storage rots. There are also aesthetic issues that might influence when farmers wash their crops. With carrots, for example, fine silt or clay soils can easily stain the roots when they’re stored dirty for more than a couple months. On the flip side, fall-washed carrots (and other root crops) often develop discolored root tips or fine roots that would otherwise come off during wintertime washing but must be trimmed off if washed in fall.
Which storage crops need washing anyways? Usually, all the classic root crops—beets, carrots, celeriac, parsnips, potatoes, radishes, rutabagas, sweet potatoes, sunchokes, and turnips—are washed to remove soil and expose those beautifully colored skins. Farmers sometimes wash winter squash and pumpkins to remove soil and sanitize them. As a leafy green sometimes eaten raw, kale should be washed prior to selling for food safety concerns. Cabbages are rarely washed because the outer layers can be peeled off, exposing clean leaves beneath.
Washing setups can be as simple as a slatted surface and a hose. I used the spray-table method on my first, smaller farm in Michigan. The table was a simple frame of 2 × 4s topped with half-inch hardware cloth, and the whole thing sat on sawhorses. I eventually added rails to stop veggies from rolling off the sides. If you’ve ever used a spray table, you know that washing can be time-consuming and a bit aggravating. You spray and spray until the veggies look pristine, but your heart sinks when you realize they’re still dirty on their undersides. It usually takes many repetitions of spray, roll; spray, roll; spray, roll until the batch is entirely clean. Unfortunately, I don’t have good notes from those early days regarding my washing speed; I doubt it was more than 100 to 200 pounds per hour on a good day. Of course, there are faster and more efficient ways to wash veggies.
Barrel washers
Barrel washers are one of the most ubiquitous pieces of equipment you’ll see on storage farms. They are exactly as their name describes—barrels that wash crops, usually by spinning slowly while water sprays the tumbling veggies. That annoying problem with spray tables—how the veggies vexingly stay dirty underneath no matter how much you spray them—is solved by barrel washers. They’re mainly used for root crops, with the exception of sweet potatoes, which are often damaged by the tumbling. Squash are too susceptible to bruising, and I’ve never heard of someone using a barrel washer for leafy greens.
The beauty of barrel washers is that their design is superbly functional but also adaptable; they’re often as unique as the farms on which they’re found. They can be small or large, simple or elaborate. The design possibilities are nearly limitless, but most have these features in common: an entry chute of some kind to funnel veggies into the barrel, a barrel with holes or slats for drainage, wheels that fit onto tracks or channels that gird the barrel, a means of turning the barrel, a water source, and something that blocks the exit hole while crops tumble. Here are a few examples that I’ve made or seen through the years.
In the first year of production at Offbeet Farm, I built a barrel washer using a discarded section of 24-inch plastic corrugated culvert I found in the woods on the property. The design was fairly basic. I built a wooden frame out of treated lumber that included a platform for resting totes, a mini spray table before the barrel, a funnel into the washer, and supports for caster wheels that fit into the barrel’s corrugated grooves. I peppered the barrel with 3/4-inch holes and fastened pieces of 1-inch PVC, cut in half lengthwise, to the inside of the barrel to act as agitators. I also fastened several wooden purlins on the exterior of the barrel to act as handholds. An old freezer grate on a hinge stopped veggies from rolling out the exit hole during washing. I manually sprayed veggies with a small electric pressure washer. This hand-turned barrel washer was an undeniable improvement over the spray table. It was cheap and easy to build, a perfect combo for a farmer strapped for both time and cash. I used it in this configuration for two seasons before upgrading, sending a little over 10,000 pounds of root veggies through it the second year. There were some obvious downsides to the design after using it awhile. The funnel into the barrel didn’t slope downward, and it was time consuming to push veggies into the barrel by hand rather than letting gravity do the work. Hand turning was also tiring on my shoulders!
The second iteration of the barrel washer at Offbeet Farm improved on the design of the first. Modifying the original frame, I removed the spray table and flat funnel to install a sloped chute into the barrel. (This coincided with changing our harvest containers from Rubbermaid totes to 5-gallon buckets, which are lighter to lift.) I used sections of the plastic culvert as hoops girding a circle of wooden slats; the two end-sections of culvert fit the original castor wheels on the frame. A 1/8-horsepower electric DC motor turns a 19-tooth sprocket and 5/8-inch chain wrapping the middle section of culvert (catching the ends of #10 bolts to turn the barrel). A DC variable-speed controller allows us to change how fast the barrel spins. At 100 percent speed, the barrel spins at about 10 RPM, which feels a little fast for most things, and I usually run it between 40 and 70 percent. (The motor has an integrated 40:1 reducing gear, which slows the base rate to 62 RPM.) The new chute makes loading veggies into the barrel much faster, and the motorized turning saves both time and effort. I have chosen, for now, to omit internal water sprayers and use the pressure washer as the water source. The pressure washer effectively cleans the veggies with relatively little water. (Mine uses 1.5 gallons per minute.) A downside is that washing the veggies isn’t entirely hands-free.
Giving credit where credit is due, my designs were adapted from plans for a weld-free root washer created from a SARE-funded project led by Grant Schultz of Versaland Farm in Iowa City, Iowa. These plans are available for free on Farm Hack. (If you’re not aware, Farm Hack is a place where farmers—or anyone, really—can post and share DIY tool designs in a free, open-source online format. There are many interesting and innovative ideas there.) Schultz’s barrel washer uses a wider culvert, a more powerful motor, and a larger, 1 1/4-inch pitch chain. I don’t think a more powerful motor is necessary—the 1/8-horsepower motor I use delivers plenty of torque—but I’d recommend the larger chain pitch if you can find it. Wider spaces between the links will make it easier for the chain to fit over the bolt ends sticking out of the barrel.
Other neat designs I’ve seen include the barrel washer at Farragut Farm outside Petersburg, Alaska. That washer uses old bicycle rims instead of culvert pieces to gird the wooden slats, and a rubber belt rather than a chain to turn the barrel. The washer is also easy to move around, because the farmers welded the frame onto a set of bike wheels, similar to a garden cart. Spinach Creek Farm, just outside Fairbanks, Alaska, made a barrel washer cleverly powered by a
cordless drill, similar to the mechanism on the Tilther tiller sold by Johnny’s Selected Seeds. The farmers there created a “floating” block that stops veggies from exiting the spinning barrel, and they made a custom bin flipper to lift and turn their harvest bins at the barrel’s entrance.
Of course, there are companies that manufacture and sell barrel washers and other washing equipment. Grindstone Farm makes a wooden-slatted barrel washer similar in design to Schultz’s Farm Hack models that’s a popular and affordable choice for farmers looking to buy rather than build. Univerco makes both full-sized and mini barrel washers designed for medium to small farms. Other choices include barrel washers from AZS, an Amish-owned company based in Pennsylvania that makes a whole suite of very popular wash-line equipment for small-scale farms. AZS offers full-metal and polycarbonate barrels that integrate into their full set of wash-line equipment. You won’t find much of an online sales presence from AZS, but you will find evidence of the popularity of their products. I received a tip for finding AZS products through Nolt’s Produce Supplies of Leola, Pennsylvania, which publishes an online catalog with the full line of AZS products. (See the article “Equipment review: The AZS Rinse Conveyor” in the October 2024 GFM).
Other washing equipment
An increasingly popular piece of washing equipment is the rinse conveyor. These machines move veggies through a series of low- and high-pressure rinses on a slow-moving chain belt. Think of an industrial, through-put dishwasher but for vegetables. Most types have recirculation tanks that allow farmers to use less water and, if applicable, add sanitizers. Internal baffles and screens collect debris and sediment and prevent them from clogging the pumps. Unlike barrel washers, I’ve never seen a homemade rinse conveyor, but maybe that’s because their popularity is relatively new. Rinse conveyors can do everything that barrel washers can do and more, including wash sensitive crops like winter squash and sweet potatoes. I’ve even heard of farmers using them to rinse very sensitive crops like tomatoes. AZS makes rinse conveyors In several widths, depending on your needs, and they’re very popular among storage farmers, including several profiled in part 4 of this book.
Brush washers are also popular among some storage farmers. Designed mainly for removing dirt and stains from durable root crops, brush washers send veggies over a series of quickly spinning brushes. I’ve heard of several farmers who use them to remove soil staining from carrots that were stored dirty for too long. Brush washers get a bad rap from the food safety community because it’s difficult to fully clean and sanitize the brushes between washings. Vegetable parts get easily stuck between all those tiny bristles.
Dunk (or soak) tanks can be used in conjunction with any other washing equipment discussed here. The idea is simple: presoak your veggies to loosen and remove some soil before sending them into your primary washing equipment. Some soak tanks are integrated parts of a wash line, with conveyors that remove veggies from the tank and onto the washer. Dunk tanks can also be as simple as totes or livestock waterers large enough to accommodate harvest totes. At Offbeet Farm, we’ve used Rubbermaid totes to presoak our 5-gallon buckets (peppered with drainage holes) prior to washing.
Sam Knapp runs Offbeet Farm, a diversified veggie farm in Fairbanks, Alaska, focused on storage crops sold during the winter. This excerpt is from his forthcoming book, Beyond the Root Cellar, which is available for pre-order now from growingformarket.com before its release at the end of November. As always, subscribers get 20% off all the books we sell including this one. For more information about the farm and the book, visit www.offbeetalaska.com.
