How to store cabbage in an apartment and a cellar?

The purchase of vegetables, including cabbage, in winter is more expensive, and the big question is how they were kept all this time. Therefore, any hostess is useful to know how to store cabbage in winter on his own, to please himself and his loved ones with delicious and healthy dishes from fresh and stewed vegetables and various pickles.

What cabbage can I store?

A few weeks are any relatively healthy head of cabbage, then the choice of variety will not play a special role. But for successful wintering until the spring is not enough to store cabbage, it is important and pick up the proper vegetable. For long-term storage only late varieties are suitable, which ripen closer to October, and they are collected until the first serious frost. If the cabbage was bought, but the seller did not know its grade or refused to report it, it is necessary to pay attention to the shape of the head - it should be rounded and slightly flattened, the consistency should be dense. Warm, slightly wilted, too small or slightly damaged by pest killers should be eaten quickly or used for making pickles - they will not last long. It does not matter if you store cabbage in a refrigerator or basement, for this, in any case, choose strong heads without noticeable damage or disease. They do not remove the stalks, they also leave several integumentary leaves. It is better to store vegetables of medium size.

Preparation for storage of

Naturally, when collecting and transporting with heads, one should be treated with care, avoiding falls and unnecessary strikes. Next, vegetables should be folded under a canopy in the street or in a very well ventilated room in the house or apartment, so that they dry out. After a day or two, again carefully examined for pests or damage, they can already be stored for storage.

It is important that the selected room is clean. This refers not only to garbage collected, but also to walls without mold, the absence of insects and rodents. Once or twice a month, good ventilation is necessary. You can pre-medicate and antiseptic impregnation, but it must have time to dry before the premises are laid vegetables.

Ways to store

Of course, you can store cabbage in the refrigerator in winter, but only a few cabbages will fit there. Where to put more vegetables? When choosing a place, it should be remembered that if the humidity is too high, the cabbage will start to rot, if too small, on the contrary, it wilts or becomes dry. The best percentage of humidity is 80-90%.Such conditions are best provided in the cellar or cellar. There will also be an optimum temperature of about 2-3 ° C.And you can put vegetables in the room in different ways.

1. The easiest way to store cabbage is to put it in wooden boxes. It's better that they are not on the floor, but at least on a low stand. To close the lid these boxes should not be, it is also better that in the walls there are holes for airflow.
2. No less easy, but dirtier way - to fill the heads with sand in boxes or on the floor and any other flat surface in the room. Of course, sand for backfilling should be clean from debris, residues or larvae of insects, worms, and also organic waste that can begin to rot from moisture.
3. So that the heads are not in contact with each other and foreign objects, they can be wrapped in paper. First, it is better to use plain white or wrapping paper, and the upper layer is already made from old newspapers. Immediately turn cabbage newspaper pages is not recommended, because the ink for printing contains a lot of harmful substances, which for a long period of storage will be absorbed into the upper leaves of the head.
4. Even better paper from the fungus, running past the rodents and other things to save cabbage will help food film. The main thing at packing - to wrap head out tightly, without leaving holes for pests and air access. Polyethylene is hygienic, impermeable to moisture. The fact that it is transparent will give an opportunity to quickly notice and clean vegetables that have started to deteriorate.
5. You can hang more heads, but for this they will have to leave a long stump and roots through which the wire or rope is threaded. Then, under the ceiling, you should fix a piece of wood with nails hammered into it or a round bar like a handle from a squeegee, where the heads are already hung at a distance of 20-30 cm from each other. This option is convenient, allows you to take the right vegetable at any time without disturbing the storage conditions of the rest, regularly inspect for damage or rot, allows the cabbage to be well ventilated. The only significant drawback of this method is that in a cellar of medium size it will not be possible to place more than a couple dozen heads.



6. As for some other fruits, storing cabbage is possible in clay - for this, the heads are coated with a thick layer of clay mixture and neatly laid out or suspended. Clay - a natural antiseptic, so prevent the appearance of rot or pests. Although later, unpacking such a shell, you have to sacrifice a few of the top, especially smeared in clay with vegetable sheets.
7. In case of a warm climate, when the soil does not freeze, cabbage can be stored not only at home, but also right in the ground. The cabbage should be neatly laid out in a ditch specially dug for it and covered with a layer of earth 15-20 cm. However, this method does not provide an opportunity to monitor the safety of cabbage. In the soil can be various fungi, and animals, ranging from worms to rodents, can enjoy delicious and healthy vegetables with pleasure.
8. In cold regions, instead of soil, the heads are buried in the snow, and its top layer should be no thinner than 40-50 cm. Pests will be absent in this case, and it will only be necessary to ensure that the snow cover does not melt too much.
9. Because cabbage is a hard and dense vegetable, it is quite difficult to crush it or even slightly damage it in this way. Therefore, when storing, cabbage is often folded into one large or several small pyramids. Provided proper ventilation, the design takes up little space, but here to get the vegetable started to spoil somewhere from the depth of the pyramid, you have to disassemble it all. In addition, when individual heads contact each other, the risk of contracting healthy vegetables from the patients increases.

For cauliflower, storage methods are not suitable. It is best to wrap such a vegetable in a cloth or newspaper and store cabbage in a cellar suspended in a mesh or linen bag.

But how to ensure the storage of cabbage in the apartment? Instead of a basement, an unheated balcony or a clean dry storage room will do.

Summary

Of course, not all fruits and vegetables can be stockpiled for months ahead, but if you store cabbage and some other products correctly, then they are able to lie until the spring and the first fresh fruits on the bed.

Of course, if you do not want to keep cabbage in the winter fresh, you can cook one or more of the many possible pickles or send shredded cabbage to the freezer and use it then for suppression, soups, pies and other dishes.