Secrets of Vegetable Storage, Or How to Make a Home Pantry

In order to keep the summer vegetables and fruits as long as possible until the next season, various techniques based on their natural properties are used. Thus, the ripening of many fruits and vegetables: apples, strawberries, tomatoes - is often associated with the gradual disappearance of green color due to the gradual accumulation of carotenoids in fruit, replacing the green pigment of chlorophyll. It is important to note that by skilfully slowing the ripening of fruits and vegetables, you can increase their keeping quality while maintaining high nutritional qualities. Leaving, in turn, is determined by the ability of vegetables to preserve nutritional and nutritional properties for a sufficiently long time under certain conditions. These properties are directly determined not only by the variety, but also by the temperature conditions: the warmer the air, the faster the chlorophyll decays and the yellowing of the fruit. That's why it's so important right after harvesting to cool the products as quickly as possible.

Vegetables and fruits are able to maintain their freshness only due to the water contained in them. However, when transpiration, in other words, the interaction of harvested crop with the air environment, its drying takes place, intensified by excessive ventilation of the room and excessively warm air. At the same time, too high humidity is also unfavorable, so the main task is to create optimal conditions in the pantry that must be maintained throughout the storage period. So, the recommended air temperature should be fairly uniform, at 0-5 degrees Celsius with relative air humidity of about 75-85%. Best of all, these conditions are suitable pantries such as cellars and glaciers, having a sufficiently high humidity and a stable air temperature. In addition, unheated rooms (corridors, cellars, canopies) can be used to store products, where the air temperature does not drop below zero. It is good, when premises for storage of vegetables and fruit are provided at initial designing of the house or a cottage. Then they are organically inscribed in the structure of home ownership, allowing in sufficiently comfortable conditions to store sufficient supplies of products. When drawing up estimates of a private house, the so-called auxiliary rooms should also be taken into account along with the main rooms and annexes, although they usually do not require any serious finishing. Storerooms are usually equipped with special shelves and shelves for fruits, vegetables, including. Potatoes. Every year before harvesting, rooms for future storage, along with containers and other appliances, must be disinfected, cleaned of dust and dirt, and well ventilated.

The glacier is one of the varieties of a cellar deep in the earth with a vestibule, a storage compartment and an ice storage. Glaciers are quite effective in winter, but closer to spring, along with a gradual warming in potatoes and other vegetables, a period of deep peace ends. To maintain a constant air temperature in pantries without artificial cooling, a method such as snow melt is often used. With the onset of the spring thaw, the submerged snow can easily be rolled in a lump that is well packed into the pantry, placing a thick layer of snow on the earthen floor. For the storage of carrots, potatoes, beets and other vegetables, temporary (non-stationary) devices are also widely used: collars and pits, covered with earth, boards and straw. Thus, at the disposal of experienced gardeners there are many options for the construction of a more or less convenient pantry, which can also be used in a complex, successfully complementing each other.