How to keep the harvest longer — a life hack for summer residents

With the onset of autumn, most Russians have already harvested. Someone managed to prepare canned food, and someone is trying to save the whole fruit. While some leave supplies in the cellar in the country, others make special designs for storing vegetables on the balcony and garage with their own hands.

How durable and effective do-it-yourself installations are? What materials will be needed for their construction? Is this option really economical? These questions were answered by the «Most Useful Program» on REN TV.

Refrigerator in the garage with your own hands

The entire crop is difficult to fit in a conventional refrigerator, so the ideal way to preserve the fruits is to equip the space in the garage. First you need to enclose the desired area with an ordinary beam. Then lay the perimeter with foam and cover it all with thermal film.

The result was a large refrigeration unit, in which an old air conditioner maintains the desired temperature. To prevent the self-made cooling chamber from overheating, all the air must be pumped out of the connecting tubes and freon must be put into the system instead.

The assembly process in the program was demonstrated by the brothers Anton and Roman Abramenko from the Krasnodar Territory.

“Tests of our refrigerator showed performance more than required,” the craftsmen assure.

Thermobox on the balcony

A compact option for storing vegetables and canned food on the balcony will be a thermobox. It is a box made of ordinary timber, which is lined with foil insulation from the inside. From above, the box should be closed with ordinary boards in size. So that nothing falls out and it is convenient to get food, an insulated door is installed in front. And finally, for beauty, you can sheathe the entire structure with clapboard.

«Walls [термобокса] all are insulated, since inside there is a two-centimeter insulation folded into two layers of foil reflector. Here are all the walls [изготовлены] in two or three layers. Everything was done with a bang. By the way, a thermometer is attached to the wall on a double adhesive tape to control the temperature inside, and the aroma sensor is directly suspended from the ceiling,” the author of this unit Rinat Iskhakov from Kazan clearly explained.

Balcony container with temperature control

The simplest and most minimalistic option for storing crops on an uninsulated balcony was suggested by Andrey Borisov from Moscow.

The master took an ordinary wooden box, poured vegetables into it and covered them with a sheet of foam plastic on top, having previously made several holes in it.

To maintain the required temperature, a heated mat is placed under the box. For a month of continuous operation, such a gadget will spend only 60 rubles on electricity, so you won’t have to worry about electricity costs.