Secure your food vault!

mobios (55)in #permaculture • 6 years ago

Cold storage bins protect your harvest, so you could refer to it as your food vault! In my last article we covered the basics of site selection and working with hand tools on a small budget. In this article I'm going to go over how I secured my original slope as a retaining wall with the storage bin secured inside.

The above photo was taken after I had my bin constructed. You can see its breathing tube in the back, made from a hollow steel broom handle. I love this spot it is part of my hiking trail, and the finished root cellar fits in perfectly. You can also see the loose fill around the bin, I was exceptionally lucky to have found a slope with soil like this. I think the fill is left over from the house construction 40 years ago. I collect rocks for decoration that I found in my area, so I had a lot of choice in that regard for creating my wall as well.

I put the fill back on top, and drove a large cedar shingle in front of a large void to keep the soil from spilling out as I got my wall in place.
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I needed further digging once I had the bin buried to allow me to build a flat wooden face to attach my exterior door to. I made things more complicated by using two separate fitted pieces of plywood but that was all I had on hand to use. One solid piece would have been ideal. I've backfilled the bottom of the first plywood sheet to keep it from moving at this stage.

Here I am in the final stages of joining the two plywood sheets and making a seal to the bin with tuck tape and sill gasket foam.

Now that the plwood layer is braced with a 2 x 4, I've driven a stake behind the bin. I'm going to use the stake as an anchor point and fasten the 2 x 4 to the stake. With that done on both sides I'll have a really secure face that will settle into place more or less straight over the coming years.

I enjoy not measuring as you can see by the saw blade marks on the left of the bin!

The wooden supports are now done, next is the rock wall, and back-filling the voids.
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I was feeling pretty happy at this stage of construction, all that was left now were some minor trims and attention to fill. You can build a storm door structure for further temperature control and winter access or you can just put a board over it and a tarp. Its all up to you! If you liked this article please let me know below and resteem this post! In my next article I will go over in detail how to create an insulated door for your bin plus any other questions the community may have for me, until next time!