What do you think this might be? I was intrigued when I first came across this idea.  It is a Root Vegetable Storage Bin (from www.Gardeners.com). Now, you may wonder why I find this idea a good one.  I live in an area that is full of big rocks.  I mean, when they dug out our basement when we built our home, the pile of rocks looked like somewhere that Fred and Wilma would be right at home.  As such, I knew I couldn't have a traditional root cellar. So, when I saw this item, I was excited.  I do have a dark, cool room in the basement that would be perfect for this 'mini-root-vegetable-cellar'.  I ordered this item on-line.....and it arrived today! 

This is what it looked like when I took the package out of the box.

Here is what came with the package.  The wire basket, the burlap insert, coils, and the directions.

Cut the plastic strip holding the flat wire basket together.

Open the basket and lay it flat.

There are 8 metal coils.

Put two sides of the basket together and twist the coil around both edges.

Put 2 on each corner.

Here is the completed basket.

The instructions to say to insert the burlap liner and tie the back to the basket.  I didn't like how the front corners were not secure.

So, I sewed some left over Gross-grain ribbon to the front two corners and tied them to the front part of the basket.

Here, the flap is laid over the top of the unit. I also placed the handles on the burlap so that you can see them.

The unit comes with suggested temperatures and humidity for various vegetables. For the most part, you can place the vegetables in the unit without adding soil.  However, they suggest damp sawdust for carrots.  I am going to try this for a while, and if it works, I may get several for the winter.  This is a great solution for someone like me that cannot have a root cellar where they live.  The price as of today is $34.95 without shipping.