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Storing apples might just be the easiest and most rewarding way to start experimenting with home food storage. We began our root cellaring journey not with a fancy setup, but by simply tucking apples into the coolest part of our basement. I wanted to see how long they’d keep—and the answer surprised me.
Even without a traditional root cellar, just a little planning (and the right apple varieties) can keep apples fresh for many months… sometimes over a year.
I’ll admit, I’ve always had romantic ideas about building a true root cellar—one of those hillside hideaways dug deep into the earth. But our land has a high water table, so any dreams of an underground apple haven were quickly dashed. The good news? You don’t actually need a classic root cellar to practice root cellaring.
You can, in fact, “Root Cellar” without a root cellar.
Reading Root Cellaring: Natural Cold Storage for Fruits and Vegetables completely changed the way I thought about storing produce. The book is packed with ideas for how to store fruits and vegetables in everyday places—even if you live in an apartment. It outlines what each crop needs to stay fresh and offers plans for turning pantries, closets, basements, or back rooms into makeshift cold storage.
In our home, that spot is the back corner of the basement. Just by being underground, that section holds steady around 55°F year-round. That’s a little warmer than ideal apple storage conditions (near freezing with high humidity is best), but it still works remarkably well for long-term storage.
How to Store Apples Without a Root Cellar
When it comes to storing apples, the method we’ve had the most success with is simple: wrap each apple in newspaper and place them in shallow boxes, in a single layer so they’re not touching. This helps prevent any one apple from spoiling the bunch.
I dream of one day having one of these orchard racks from Gardeners Supply, but for now, we’re using plain old cardboard boxes. (Update: We built our own apple storage rack!)
That first year, I figured the apples would last a few months—maybe long enough for a Christmas pie. But by the time Christmas rolled around, they were just as crisp and fresh as when we packed them away. We made our pie and decided to leave the rest just to see what happened. By the next Christmas—14 months later—they were finally starting to break down, but still good enough for a second pie.
Best Apple Varieties for Long-Term Storage
The apple tree came with the house, but we eventually identified it as Newton Pippin—a historic storage variety. According to Stocking Up, it’s hands down the best apple for root cellar storage. The Slow Food Ark of Taste describes it as “late-harvested, medium-large, flattish round, green-skinned, yellow-tinged, slightly russeted,” with a balanced sweet-tart flavor and sometimes a piney aroma.
Newton Pippins need a few months in storage to fully develop their flavor, and I’d agree with that. Fresh off the tree they’re decent, but by midwinter, they’re outstanding.
Most sources say they’ll keep for about 8 months, but we’ve found they last even longer in our setup. After 8 months, they begin to wrinkle slightly and lose crispness—probably due to our basement’s lower humidity—but they don’t spoil. In fact, that 14-month-old pie apple still baked up beautifully.
Just make sure to only store perfect, bruise-free apples. Anything that gets bruised or dinged goes straight into our cider press, and most of that is preserved as canned cider. (And if it’s not too bruised, it’s perfect for canning apple pie filling or apple jam.)
We’ve since tested other long-keeping apple varieties with similar success using this newspaper-and-box method.
Ashmead’s Kernel, Honeycrisp, and Northern Spy have all stored well for 8 months or more. Honeycrisp especially surprised me—it’s not just a fantastic eating apple, but also one of the best storage apples out there. A plant breeder at the University of Minnesota even said Honeycrisp “has the capacity to store like none I have ever seen.”
After learning that, we planted two full-sized Honeycrisp trees. If all goes well, we’ll never have to buy a grocery store apple in winter again.
Other good storage apples recommended by Stocking Up include Stayman-Winesap, York Imperial, Arkansas Black Twig, Baldwin, Ben Davis, and Rome Beauty—each known for lasting 6 months or more under the right conditions.
Hopefully, I’ll be able to keep a few squirreled away and take a picture of last year’s fall apples next to this summer’s earliest apples. Our Yellow Transparent apples ripen in July…stay tuned.
Update: As I write this, it’s late March. We still have two feet of snow on the ground, and we’re eating apples harvested last September. The skin color has deepened and they’ve mellowed a bit, but they’re still crisp and delicious. I’m hoping to squirrel away a few long enough to photograph next to our earliest summer-ripening Yellow Transparent apples this July.
Second Update: We’ve now successfully stored Newton Pippin apples in our basement for 14 months with this technique! We harvested them in October, and then they were still good a full year later. I kept them a little longer, and made a pie with them for Christmas. Yes, they did actually make it to their second Christmas!
Have you tried storing apples at home? Whether you’ve got a basement nook or a cool pantry, it’s worth trying. Leave a note in the comments—I’d love to hear how it goes!
I just packed a box of apples. Can I put several layers of apples on top, in one box? Or do the wrapped apples need more space, without stacking layers?
Yes, you can stack several layers of the wrapped apples in the same box.
Thank you for your insights! Did you stack the boxes on the shelves or keep them in a single layer. If you stacked, how many boxes did you stack comfortably?
You should be able to stack the boxes on top of one another with no problem. I would just stack as many as you can without damaging the boxes.
Wow, that’s amazing! THanks for the great advice. I am excited to try this. Storing apples long term has been a problem for us.
You’re quite welcome!
Question: you wash the apple before you store?
I wouldn’t wash them before storing. They are coming right off the tree and should be pretty clean already.
Would wrapping them in small brown paperbags do the same trick? Do they need to be in a closed or opened box? Does it need to be a cardboard box or is a plastic tote safe?
Yes, that would work as well.
Great idea and very helpful. I used to buy end rolls of paper from a newspaper that printed on site. It wasn’t printed in so no ink as I hated using it w/ink when I did paper mache. This would be a great other use of that paper.
Yes, it definitely would be.
Our mum and nan did this when we were growing up in the sixties. She kept the in the cupboard under the stairs. The apples lasted perfectly and never spoilt.
Hello! I am curious if anyone has tried this with store bought (organic) apples? We don’t have a tree yet but my husband really like the idea, assuming we can get a long-storage variety to grow for Central Texas? Someone else mentioned in the comments that store ones are already a year old so looks like I have some research to do! Thank you for
this information and the book recommendation. I know I want to store things but don’t always know what questions I should be asking. I love that you also shared info with someone else about the ethane gas because I tried finding answers on that before but came up short. I look forward to researching the chemistry behind all of this. Could be a game changer. I’ve been measuring the temperature in our home’s middle closet and I know it’s too hot for summer storage so I have been toying with how to make that better without destroying our house lol…the winter gets our master closet plenty cold though.
You can definitely use store-bought apples, provided they’re recently harvested and good storage varieties. That’s tricky though, as wholesalers often save the storage varieties for sale in the off-season, and only offer the quick spoilage ones in the fall. The other ones then later in the season, as you mention…have already been stored for quite a while. Some of the farm markets (not farmer’s markets, but like actual storefronts) around here sell a huge variety of local produce in season and you can often get fresh apples from the farm that way. That’s your best bet.
Awesome, thank you for your experience and reply! I will definitely be keeping that mind when shopping for them. Not that I want to sacrifice our food for experiments, but I could probably test it and keep an eye out for spoilage as the months progress.
I was very interested to read this about Newton Pippins. We live in Victoria, BC, Canada, which has the same climate at Washington State (seattle). Our Newton Pippins, on a large very old tree, start to fall in droves in mid to late August, so many get bruised. Do yours fall early like this, long before they are ripe? We tend to pick a lot early in Septmeber because of this. They are great when they go yellow and ripen, but it takes time.
The fruit should not be dropping before it has had a chance to ripen. Other than the fruit dropping prematurely, have you noticed anything else about the health of the tree?
I live in humid hot Louisiana in a brick house on a slab. The winter heat is gas. We keep the heat at 68 during the day and 63 at night. I have an extra closet for ‘in case of emergency’
I wonder if apples would stay ok in the bottom of that closet thru winter…?
Melissa
Does your closet have heat in it? Do you have an idea of what the temperature is in there?
We live in Washington state, and have an unheated pump house. We bought a plastic toter because of mice that for sure live there.
Do you think if we drill some holes in the sides of the plastic toter it would give enough ventilation and wrap the apples in newspaper and that this approach would work? The temperature is perfect and it’s humid.
Thanks!
I think that sounds about perfect to me!
Thanks!
I wish we could do that in our trailer in sunny central Florida. I do want to say that my grandparents had a yellow transparent apple tree. She used to slice them up and dry them over the wood stove and put them up marked YT4P, meaning that they were for pies. I used to like eating them just as they were. A dear friend had said she tried every type of apple she could find, but couldn’t match dried YT flavor. Thanks for the great ideas.
I’m so glad I happened upon your website! We bought an overgrown vineyard with old fruit trees about 10 years ago, and the two apples you’ve featured are quite possibly two of the varieties of trees we have as well! The root cellar tips are wonderful as well. Our house has a creepy crawly space with a dirt floor off the basement. I’ve never used it and never have even ventured into it. I do know it has small air vents at ground level because I can see light coming into it from time to time. Maybe it’s a root cellar and what the farm used for produce storage!
I’m guessing this won’t work in south Texas where it’s hot and humid most of the time? Or will wrapping them in newspaper help extend their life no matter the temperature?
Winter heat isn’t a problem we have here…ever. Honestly, I couldn’t say.
I’ve heard it’s not good to store apples with other things. Have you had any experience with that, or does the newspaper protect the other produce, too?
Apples put off a lot of ethylene gas, which is something that causes other things to spoil. It’s best to keep them away from other things you’re storing if at all possible. Ethylene sinks I’ve read, so if you store apples below other things that’s supposed to be fine. One other thing I read a time back is that ethylene prevents potatoes from sprouting, so you’re supposed to store your apples above your potatoes and then everything else above that.
Kinda complicated, and in reality, it only matters if you’re trying to store them for the whole winter (ie. extended periods).
Root cellar at dark is that a requirement?
It is for potatoes, but I’m honestly not totally sure for apples. I’ve never had a space that was cool enough for apples that wasn’t also pretty dark. Our basement isn’t completely dark, there is a half window that lets in quite a bit of light.
I had a thought go to the grocery store and get the apple separators and a few boxes they fit
Good idea!
I am pretty sure that apples at the store are from the previous year that were kept in ideal conditions.
Do you ever have problems with mice eating them?
Surprisingly, no. Though we have rodents in the house somewhat often, they’re never here long. I’ve never seen evidence of them getting into anything in the pantry, and they’re almost always in the kitchen, and that’s where we set our traps. This could be a problem though, if you have a different setup or a more persistent rodent problem.