The Amish Root Cellar Stays at 54° All Year — The $0 Cooling the Power Company Hopes You Forget

The Amish Root Cellar Stays at 54° All Year — The $0 Cooling the Power Company Hopes You Forget For no electricity and no bill, ever, the root cellar under our hillside has held fifty-four degrees every day of the year since nineteen thirty-four, and I have kept my vegetables fresh for fifty winters without a refrigerator. My name is Mammi Sarah. I am Amish, I live in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, and my husband's grandfather dug that room into the north slope by hand. Your refrigerator fights a war it cannot win, and the power company, the maker and the grocer all do well out of it. I will show you the depth, the bare earth floor, the two doors and the two vent pipes nobody explains right, and how to reach that cold this weekend with a barrel and a shovel. And what you are rarely told: you are not making cold. Below the frost line the earth already holds one steady temperature, and a buried room borrows it, free, forever. ⚠️ A root cellar is not a refrigerator or a freezer. Fifty-four degrees suits potatoes, carrots, apples and jars, but it will not keep milk, meat or eggs safe, and food that ought to be cold and is not can make your family sick. Treat it with the same respect your grandmother did. Tell me in the comments where you live and whether you have a cellar or a cool corner. I read every one. 🔔 Subscribe for more of the old ways. Next time, how my grandmother kept fresh eggs good for six months on a pantry shelf with a crock, water and one white powder.