when I was a kid we had a dirt floor cellar and dad pulled his tomato plants and hung them from the 2x8's in the cellar;we had fresh tomatoe's till thanksgiving. he made a wood box slatted on sides for his potatoes-they would last till spring;he also made a solid box and filled it half full with dry sand. he then put his fresh pulled carrots (which he first dryed in sun ) into the box and covered with sand, the cellar was not heated but stayed above freezing. the carrots and potatoes would last till spring.

Our house had a dirt floor in the cellar too. I still call those "cellars" and the ones with cement "basements."

I never heard of the hanging tomato plants trick. My family used to pick them green the day before the first frost was expected, wrapped each in newspaper and boxed them in the cellar. About once a week my mother would go through the box looking for ripened ones and ones that were rotting. Hanging them would have been so much easier.

I see that you made it onto DU3!

where he would keep potatoes and squash

yup

we had friends that lived on farms near to us that had root cellars! we keep our carrots in a spare fridge down stairs now and they last a couple months! wrapping tomatoes in paper (brown) an keeping in dark will keep 6 weeks or so!
hope you have good luck with this new format!