Talk about exciting days in the garden, the kids have been waiting a LONG time for this day. It’s time to harvest the carrots! Not only are there plenty of carrots to go around–one for you, one for you, one for you–but these kids remember the carrot cake we made from our last batch and their tongues are wagging. Mm… Fluffy and oh-so-yummy!
Yep. These guys and gals would like nothing more than to feast on some more carrot cake and cream cheese frosting, but this time how about we try something different? WHAT? No carrot cake?
Ah, c’mon. Now that would be just plain crazy talk. How about a little bit of both? Carrot juice to go with that cake, anyone?
Start grabbing carrots! But hey–what happened to the rest of mine?
And why is my carrot so funky looking?
Hm. Interesting. As experienced gardeners, we know that carrots like soft beds of dirt. All plants prefer soft dirt! It allows their roots to grow nice and deep. Since carrots are actually the “roots,” they try to grow nice and deep, which gives them the pretty cone-shaped appearance we’ve come to know and love.
If the dirt is too packed? It’s hard. And hard dirt is “hard” for a carrot to push through as they grow. Ah-ha! No wonder they couldn’t grow deep. True. Could have been a rock or something. But our carrots are strong-willed (like many of us children) and are determined to continue growing. If they can’t go down? They’ll go sideways. Yep. Or they’ll pour all their energy into growing wider.
But with spring break bouncing in our way this month, the kids will have a lesson in “delayed gratification.” No fun, I know. But definitely a fact of life. So how will we store them until our return?
I’m glad you asked. One of the easiest ways to store carrots (without losing half your refrigerator space) is to layer them in damp sand–sawdust will work, too! Find a bin, box or even plastic bucket and gather (aka: purchase) your sand.
Choosing only your best carrots, clip the greens about an inch away from the carrot end and layer them within the damp sand/sawdust.
Couple of things to keep in mind: if you plan to store these long-term, choose a dark space where it remains somewhat cool. For many of my Arctic Amigos, this will be a root cellar. But warm region folks like us will need to find a dark corner in our garage or garden shed. One of the keys to this storage system is to keep the “filler” sand damp throughout the length of your storage. Now we’ll only need to store ours for a couple of weeks, but it sure was fun to learn how to keep them longer if we needed! 🙂 Knowledge = fun
Also, standing your carrots upright and sifting the sand/sawdust over and around them will help when it comes time to use them. Simply pluck and pull!
Wunderbar. Now start dreaming of that carrot cake! It’s not so very far away…
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