Although I have personally yet to put it into practice, the method of storing a large variety of fruit and vegetables in sand over winter, as described in Joe Eck and Wayne Winterrowd's "Living seasonally : the kitchen garden and the table at North Hill (1), was one of the readings that got me to here…
They created an earth berm structure writ large cold cellar and had built in bins that were lined initially with dry sand in a few inch layer, onto which they laid a layer of fruit or vegetable such that each unit was not in contact with any other. Cover in dried sand, and repeat until the bin is four feet or so high and your crop is stored. Top layer should be sealed in sand.
There are innumerable accounts from hirsute print sources now online through the big search engines that support and dissect the efficacy when entering sand stored fruit or vegetable as terms. According to those sources the sand stabilizes humidity and temperature, and keeps oxidation from occurring, all things that spoil stored consumables.
The elephant in the room would be how many kilo-tons of sand and square footage do you need for your 500 trees? The gentlemen of North Hill lived off 20 acres of mixed woodlot, orchard, meadow, edible and ornamental gardens out of which they fed themselves. Often personal storage methods are commercially unscalable; but in the time it takes your trees and mine to come online, you might have wherewithall to create your own sustainable storage if that truly is more advantageous than pick and transfer on to the final processor at time of peak harvestability…
(1) [
www.worldcat.org]
Lakes Region NH @ 1200' or so
5a?
393 planted towards a 440 goal mixed apple, pear, plum and apricot...
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/06/2015 04:46AM by Chris Vlitas.