That beautiful green leaf was a dandelion. Dandelions are edible, nutritious and a very valuable medicinal herb.

“Dandelions are a powerful diuretic. The roots act as a blood purifier that helps both the kidneys and the liver to remove toxins and poisons from the blood. The roots have been used for centuries to treat jaundice. Dandelion also acts as a mild laxative and improves appetite and digestion. It is useful for eczema like skin problems, boils, and abscesses and is believed to help prevent age spots and breast cancer.”
Prescription for Herbal Healing,
Phyllis A. Balch

The small leaves in the early spring can be eaten raw, in a salad. They can be a little bitter, so I mixed them in a tossed green salad, I thought they were really good and had a nice flavor. Once the heat comes the leaves turn really bitter, at that time I will harvest and dry to use medicinally in teas and tinctures. In the fall I plan to dig up roots, dry and use medicinally as well.

(thats if I can keep Dadzoo from pulling them all up before….)

Sometimes I look into the hills behind my house and wonder about the plants up there. What is edible? What can be used medicinally? I know that yarrow grows in the high meadows and is a powerful herb. There are also Sego Lilies, that my pioneer ancestors used to use as food, but are now protected as our state flower and can’t be harvested. I am going to be researching this a little more. As for edible and medicinal plants in my yard that wouldn’t normally be considered as such, I will be blogging about those.

(Have you ever eaten a rose? I have!)

Anyway, until we move to a farm and I can get Dadzoo to build me a real root cellar my basement will have to do. Really it does quite well. My basement is only partially finished, there are two rooms, a bedroom and an office, then there is a big open unfinished space and this little room. Dadzoo walled this off very soon after we moved into this house and built some shelves. There have been times that this little room was pretty empty, however the last few years I have been stocking up. About two weeks ago Dadzoo went and bought me some more shelves and so now I feel like I can share what my root cellar is like, things aren’t piled all over the place anymore!

This is to the left of the door, these shelves are where all my caning supplies and misc jars are stored. In the back corner I have buckets of wheat, each bucket has about 40 pound of wheat. I am still working on stocking up on wheat.

These shelves are directly across from the door. The shelves on the right hold baking items, oatmeal, some boxes of pasta on the top and the bottom shelf will hold bags of flour and sugar, I need to do some more stocking up of those, I have been a bit lazy lately. The buckets in front are for flour and sugar. After I open the bags I pour the contents in the buckets and that is what I use when I bake. The bucket in the middle is full of wheat, I use freshly ground wheat in my baking. The shelf on the left holds fresh produce, vinegar, a bin of candles and other misc items.

In the left corner is my deep freeze.

Here is a shelf that has a box of tomatoes slowly ripening, a basket of apples and the big bushel basket holds onions. Below I have another big box of tomatoes and 150 pounds of potatoes in bags and baskets.

On the far wall is a widow. I love and hate this window. It makes for nice natural light, however that isn’t always a good thing when you are storing produce and you want it to go dormant. I need to cover it. I also keep it opened a crack all the time to let in the cold air. This room stays between 40 and 50 degrees in the winter, perfect for keeping potatoes.

(in case there is a weird-o reading this post and now thinks they know how to break into my house let me tell you a few things: first, there is nothing of value in my house, second, I own a big dog..ok not really, third, my husband owns guns that he doesn’t get to shoot often and is always looking for a chance to do so, and fourth, there is a security measure on this particular window that allows it to stay open a crack but no further.)

To the right of the door are my original shelves, they are nice and deep so I can store a lot there.

On the top shelf I keep all my pint jars. From right to left I have: Syrups, Jellies, Jam, Fruit Butters, Green Relish, Chili Sauce, Tomato Sauce, Tomato Soup, Chicken Broth, Apple Sauce and some Salsa.

On the bottle shelf I have my quart jars. From right to left: Stewed Tomatoes, Tomato Juice, Tomato Soup, Potatoes, Apples, Grape juice, and misc canned items (I hope someday to not have to purchase many canned items from the store.)

These shelves change as the year goes on, in the early winter I will can more potatoes and there will be more room because a lot of the tomatoes will have been used.

So there you have it, my root cellar. The biggest thing is to keep the room cool and dry.

Do you have a food storage room?