We used to have basement storage like Don and Bonnie have in their root cellar…they supply themselves and their grown children and their families with wonderful home-canned garden produce. Notice their sturdy shelving to hold the weight of all those filled jars of garden goodies.
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| Don and Bonnie's Root Cellar |
We now keep our supplies in our pantry and closets that aren’t too hot, and our laundry room…we use sturdy chrome shelving - it's easy to move and adjust, but more expensive than sturdy homemade shelving like our Mom had in her "fruit room".
These are our pantry closets...Myrna has some similar shelving. If you buy the steel shelving we have, look for some that are sturdy, with all the same sizes of upright poles, so they can be interchanged.
The shelving in the pictures consists of 2 shelving units combined into one so
we could keep our canned goods without having to stack them. In this right-hand closet we shelved it completely with two
34” units and an 18” unit in the middle.
One of the 34” units is not a commercial unit and I have regretted not
buying a better one so I could store more weight on it. Sam's and Costco and big-box lumber yards are good sources for this shelving, as well as food service supply stores.
These last for years, and we have moved them
several times from one house to another easily.
They can also be reconfigured fairly easily as your storage needs
change.
In the top right hand corner is a collapsible roll-down can rack. I also keep my canning jar boxes for keeping my jars together...it keeps them from tipping over, and getting mixed up too. You'll notice we don't have to worry about earthquakes here, so we don't have to keep our shelves barred in the front to keep from losing jars. You can turn the metal shelves over and have a lip if desired. as we have in the narrow center rack where I keep more individual items. If flooding is a concern, you may want to keep your shelves more elevated.
Keeping your storage in a dark room or closed closet will make your glass-jar canned foods in particular, last longer than if they are exposed to sunlight all the time.
Turnover is another issue; I take the time to add new items to the back and pull older items forward so we never have to throw away food we paid our hard-earned money for.
In the top right hand corner is a collapsible roll-down can rack. I also keep my canning jar boxes for keeping my jars together...it keeps them from tipping over, and getting mixed up too. You'll notice we don't have to worry about earthquakes here, so we don't have to keep our shelves barred in the front to keep from losing jars. You can turn the metal shelves over and have a lip if desired. as we have in the narrow center rack where I keep more individual items. If flooding is a concern, you may want to keep your shelves more elevated.
Keeping your storage in a dark room or closed closet will make your glass-jar canned foods in particular, last longer than if they are exposed to sunlight all the time.
Turnover is another issue; I take the time to add new items to the back and pull older items forward so we never have to throw away food we paid our hard-earned money for.
That's a lot of good storage and some wonderful food to use.
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