Storing food for the winter

As a child, Mihela loved her grandparents’ root cellar — a simple room dug into the hillside, cool, tidy, and kept behind a green wooden door. Years later, while gardening and learning to live more closely with the land, the idea returned. A space within a hill, with naturally stable temperatures and humidity, felt both practical and quietly essential.

After visiting Sepp Holzer’s farm in Austria and seeing how root cellars could blend beautifully into the landscape, we decided to build one of our own. The plan was simple: start, and see what unfolds. A modest 2×2×2 metre cellar felt right for our needs.

Reading this, you might think we were slightly underprepared — and you wouldn’t be entirely wrong. This project leaned heavily on learning as we went, guided by the skill and generosity of Will, who led the building while we assisted and learned alongside him. What emerged is a structure we admire every day, and a place that allows us to store food well, source locally, and live more simply because of it.