We use rubbermaid bins (see photo) to store our harvest (for pretty much everything except tomatoes) in our cold room and have been dealing with some pretty heavy condensation inside the bins when the lids are closed. We’ve since tried to adjust by cracking the lids to alleviate the issue, but our shelves make it hard to do this and removing the lids entirely results in humidity levels that are too low.
I’ve been considering drilling holes in the bins instead, but I’m unsure as to whether that would solve my problem, so I thought I would check with fellow growers before I start drilling holes in a bunch of bins.
Bonjour Denis,
I use those exact bins to keep things dry in our garage. They are very “hermétique”!
Fiddle foot farm used those to deliver my CSA share at pick up point this summer; It kept it sealed from contamination and kept thing relatively fresh depending on outside temp and how long it took me to go and pick it up.
I am guessing that incoming humidity will be important and it will depend on the crop’s needs. For example our home storage cold room is very dry and our carrots all dried up in the moist sand cardboard boxes we used last year; so this year we will try these bins, one with slightly moist sand and the other with slightly moist fine clean pine shavings [all depends on the carrot’s moisture as we put it in].
We have also other Rubbermaid bins that are not so hermetically sealed, those will let humidity in and out. So it depends on the outer environment we want to keep out or the inner environment we want to keep in as to which one we use.
I hope this helps,
Anne
