Hello, hivers and garden lovers!
I'm finally getting around to writing this post about my carrot crop. I'll start by saying that I didn't plant a lot of carrots last spring. I only used 1 section of my main raised bed for carrots this year.
This was the way the carrots looked at the beginning of June. You can see the size of the section of the raised bed that I used for the carrots. I put the chicken wire around the carrots to keep the rabbits from eating the tops, and to try to keep the cats from digging in the bed.
At the beginning of October, the carrots were still doing pretty well, even with the colder weather. It had not gotten very cold at night yet at that time. I had removed the chicken wire once the carrot tops got big enough to discourage the cats from digging in the bed.
By the first of November, we had been getting heavy frosts and cold nights. The carrots can handle a certain amount of cold, but they don't grow much when it's cold. The plants were starting to droop a bit.
I was busy with other stuff at the time, so I decided to cover the carrots with clear plastic to protect them from the cold until I could get them harvested. I used the heaviest clear plastic that I could find at the store. I think the plastic sheet is 4 mil thick.
I was finally able to find the time to harvest them in the middle of November. The ground was starting to freeze in the garden, so I didn't want to wait any longer. The plastic cover does help to hold in a bit of ground heat, but I knew that if I waited much longer, the carrots would start to freeze. I pulled the plastic off the carrots to start digging them up.
I used one of my digging forks to loosen the ground around the carrots to make it easier to pull them out. It didn't take too long to get them all out of the ground.
I put the carrots into my wheelbarrow as I was pulling them out. That just seemed like the easiest way to carry them. I ended up with a few big carrots, a fair amount of medium sized ones, and a bunch of small ones. Apparently, I didn't do as good of a job of thinning them out as I thought I did when they were still small.
I put the entire wheelbarrow full of carrots into the greenhouse for a few days until I could get around to cutting the tops off and cleaning them up. When I finally got them cleaned up, I put them into a 5 gallon bucket and brought them into the basement.
I didn't get a lot of carrots, but I wasn't expecting to with the small amount I planted. I have them stored in the basement refrigerator along with the potatoes that I grew. The carrots won't keep as well as the potatoes, but I can probably use most of them before I have to worry about that.
That's all I have for this post, I hope you found it interesting!
You grow some very nice looking carrots and potatoes my friend @amberyooper.
I'm gonna have to eat a carrot now :D Although my carrots are not as good looking as yours, probably because mine are store bought lol.
Those carrots look great, diverse in size and color as should be. I'll probably copy your idea of putting a plastic on top when temperature drops to keep them safe for a bit longer, thanks for sharing that
One of my library project ideas for Spring is seed tape. The idea is to pre-space the seeds before planting so thinning isn't as necessary, if it is required at all. A paste of flour and water, like that for papier-mache, is used to adhere seeds to toilet paper, crepe paper, or similarly biodegradable material at the desired spacing during winter. When it's time to plant, just roll out the strips of paper, cover with soil to the right depth, and wait for germination to happen. It helps scratch that gardening itch while Spring is teasing us with greenery while nights are still freezing cold, and simplifies garden work later. Some gardeners swear by the method. What do you think?
I've found carrots do best here with 2 - 3" of space around each one. My nemesis this year was a climbing woodchuck. But I still got decent carrots. And I also keep mine in the bottom drawer of the fridge, but in a plastic bag with small holes punched in it. They keep for a very long time.
I love your stocks. I wish I can do the same.