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hi there,
i recently moved here and have been growing my own food. i am wondering
what do people do here to store food, such as dehydrated fruits or root veggies like Kalo? back on the mainland i used to have a root cellar. wondering if anyone here does that, or is it impractical being that its too humid, too moldy? if i were to dig out a hole in the ground, is there
a way to keep it farely dry? what would you use to line it with? any advice would be appreciated.
thank you
mary
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Why not just get a free refrigerator from a transfer station?
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to put it into the ground? well its too small of a space to really put a lot of food into it for storage plus it would probably get very humid just as well. i wonder how the old hawaiians used to store food? if they salted it and dehydrated it, the humidity would surely get at it pretty quickly leaving it outside, there must of been some method they used to keep it around for a while, but seems to be nothing that i can find on the web talking about it.
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No, not in the ground. There are several people I know here that use old refrigerators or freezers to keep things dry and bug proof. Some use dessicant (kitty litter) to keep the humidity down.
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Mary-
Are looking to have food available for an emergency, power outage etc. or just trying to stretch out your commodities?
If your answer is the latter its easy. You do what us wood workers do.
You make one box that is sealed to a dehumidifier which can be turned on/off periodically or set to a timer.
A hole in the ground in Puna can be quite a task. If you want to build a dry storage space w/o power than you may want to consider building an above ground structure. This should be in a sunny/cleared part of the property. The less vegetation around it the better. Rock and cement would probably be the best media to use, however you'll need a "tight" masonry job, close knit stones, fine sand/cement mixture.
There are a lot of other things to consider like the air flow of your property, which directions do the winds usually blow, where does the sun shine for the longest duration on your land?
Your structure must allow for air to flow preferably above and below it. In a set up like this you may still be limited as to what you can store and for how long. Lets face it, its just humid here.
As for the ancient Kanka Maoli, they did salt and dry fish and some other meats, but not likely for long durations and it varied from region to region, micro climate to micro climate.
Roots were stored, like sweet potato, kalo, etc, but these store and keep relatively easy. In places with an abundance of food growing out of the Earth and no threat of frost or chill, storing food for long periods of time probably wasn't a high priority for the ancients of these islands, but where there's a will there's a way. Many blessings with your venture! Aloha
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Hi Mary!
I originally gardened in NJ where storing the food we produced was the norm. But I have found that long term food storage isn't an issue here for me. Oh, when I first moved here I put up garden excess by canning, dehydrating, and freezing. But I quickly discovered that the garden kept on producing even though I never had a chance to touch the stored food. We just ate fresh out of the garden all the time.
I've learned that the trick for us is to time our seed sowing so that we have a constant supply of fresh veggies year around. Any excess is either fed to the chickens, traded with others for things we don't have, or given away to the needy and elderly. I don't have the timing down perfect, but I just adjust menus to what is currently ready in the garden.
Excess potatoes are stored in the ground. They hold for a good two months. Sweet potatoes hold well right in the kitchen. Taro is harvested and replanted regularly, so no need for special storage. Most veggies grow year around. Garlic and onions are seasonal if you want bulbs, but I cook with them before they go to bulb.
Fruits are seasonal. Excess of these are the main thing that I preserve. Pineapples are sliced and dehydrated, then stored in mason jars to seal out moisture. Bananas are either frozen (whole in their peel) for future cooking, or dehydrated. Lemons, limes, and oranges I grate the peel for zest, which I store in the freezer. I'll juice citrus and freeze it for later use. Avocados I also freeze. Lilokoi and guava I'll scoop out the pulp and freeze. Papaya, mango, and joboticoba I usually make into syrup or jam.
Anything I dehydrate I store in mason jars. The gasket keeps out the moisture. I haven't found that regular jars or ziploc bags work. The mason jars work well for storing rice, pasta, beans, etc.
...Su Ba
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Some things like root veggies can be stored in those hanging wire mesh baskets where they get good air circulation. If you hang them high and not over the stove where cooking steam releases more moisture, the warm air in your kitchen helps to delay the onset of mold and mildew.
Also, recently I have been turned onto something called green bags - available in WalMart and probably elsewhere. They keep food fresher longer and can be washed and reused over and over again.
Mason jars work, but if you seal in your food on a humid day you are also sealing in that humidity. They work better when you open them on a sunny day, midday when there is less humidity.
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Vacuum sealing works really well also!
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Thanks all for your suggestions. i was referring to storing food for long term purposes. basically i figure we are on a small remote island. if something happens to the mainland and things can not be shipped here,the island has 3 days worth of food in the supermarkets here for everyone, not that much food if you think about it. i thought it would of been prudent to store some stuff for the rainy day so to speak. so, what i did so far is ordered some mylar bags from amazon 5gallon once and filled them up with dry goods like red hard wheat and oats and barley, some dry bullion and dry butter, then i put the lids with gaskets on the buckets and seal them well. oh i also through in some oxigen suckers into the buckets to kill any possible bugs in the grains. i am digging a hole just big enough to be ablet to accomodate my buckets. i am going to line the hole with thick plastic that i got from Rudys shade and i am going to put the buckets in there, cover it with plastic and throw 2 feet of dirt over them. i am digging this hole on the top of the hill,and where i am at, its not puna, so i have planty of soft dirt, easy to dig so i figure the rain will run off the hill. anyways, we will see what happens. i will check on these bukets in 3 years and see if they are still any good. i got kids to worry about, thats my main reason for storage.
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