Pits and trenches or mounds may be used for storage if a root cellar is not available or basement storage is impractical. Also, you may bury a barrel, drainage tile, or galvanized garbage can upright, with four inches of the top protruding above ground level. This will keep potatoes, beets, carrots, turnips, and apples through winter. For convenience, place the produce in sacks or perforated polyethylene bags of a size to hold enough for a few days. Then you can easily take out fruits and vegetables as needed.
Place the barrel on a well drained site, and make a ditch so surface water will be diverted and not run into the container. A garbage can has a good lid, but for a drainage tile or barrel a wooden lid may have to be built. The lid should be covered with straw, and a waterproof cover of canvas or plastic placed over the straw.
Requirements of fruits and vegetables differ. Controlled cold storage or refrigerated storage are best.
Good references are Storing Vegetables and Fruits in Basements, Cellars, Outbuildings, and Pits, USDA Home and Garden Bulletin No. 119, and bulletins on this subject prepared by your State Extension service. Your county Extension office may have the bulletins. This office may also be able to tell you how to obtain plans for a fruit and vegetable storage room, or a storm and storage cellar.
Brief notes on specific storage problems follow:
With proper care, hard-rind varieties of winter pumpkins and squash will keep for several months. Harvest before frost, and leave on a piece of stem when you cut them from the plants.
Store only well-matured fruits that are free of insect damage and mechanical injuries.
Pumpkins and squash for long-term storage keep better when cured for 10 days at 80° to 85° F. If these temperatures are impractical, put the pumpkins and squash near your furnace to cure them. Curing hardens the rinds and heals surface cuts. Bruised areas and pickleworm injuries, however, cannot be healed.
After curing pumpkins and squash, store them in a dry place at 55° to 60° F. If stored at 50° or below, pumpkins and squash are subject to damage by chilling. At temperatures above 60°, they gradually lose moisture and become stringy.
Acorn squash keep well in a dry place at 45° to 50° F for 35 to 40 days. Do not cure acorn squash before storing them. They turn orange, lose moisture, and become stringy if cured for 10 days at 80° to 85° or if stored at 55° or above for more than 6 to 8 weeks.