Harvesting/Blanching Homegrown Carrots

Our mild, wet winter has expedited the carrot season.  We've been pulling more than a few here and there and eating them, but as I walked to the carrot rows in the garden this Saturday and pulled a few up to inspect them, I realized we'd better get busy with the carrot harvest.  Some were beginning to rot in the ground (oh no!) and some were getting a little too large.

So I got my pitchfork and 3 five gallon buckets and commenced digging up carrots.  Actually I try not to disturb the soil too much.  I just stick the pitchfork in the dirt on the side of the carrot and use the leverage of the pitchfork as I pull on the carrot greens to pull them right out.  You can see in the photo below the hole from which I've pulled the Cosmic Purple Carrot.  That's a big, fat purple carrot!

Cosmic Purple carrot fresh out of the ground.

I grow four different type carrots:

• Berlicum Carrot (a normal orange carrot)
• Cosmic Purple Carrot
• Atomic Red Carrot
• Parisienne Carrot (a round carrot perfect for soups and stews)

I only had a few Parisienne carrots in their row left as we've eaten a bunch of those - same thing with the Atomic Red Carrots.  You can see the yield of Cosmic Purple carrots below after I harvested them and washed them up nicely.  The color of these carrots jump out and grab you.

5 gallon bucket of Cosmic Purple Carrots.

Finally I started harvesting on the Berlicum Carrot row.  Of course the cows gathered by the garden fence and I obliged, tossing them a bunch of carrot greens.  I think I saw them smile, if cows smile.

Nice sized Berlicum Carrots

I put them in a bucket and washed them up real good, pouring the top-soil laden water back in the garden.  I don't want to throw any of the soil down the drain that I've worked so hard to build.


A 5 gallon bucket of Berlicum Carrots

These carrots, in my estimation, are a nice eating size, raw or cooked - they are delicious. 

Bursting with Beta Carotene

You can see some of the Parisienne carrots cut up on the right and the Atomic red carrots cut up on the left.  We use a vegetable peeler to remove the peels and a sharp knife to slice them into disks for blanching and freezing. 


Cut up Atomic Red and Parisienne Carrots

 We had an assembly line going.  I was peeling, Laura was chopping and Tricia was blanching.


All ready for blanching

We blanch the carrots prior to freezing for a couple of reasons - carrots contain bacteria and enzymes that will adversely affect the color and flavor of carrots while they're in the freezer.  Blanching the carrots will kill the bacteria and slow down the action of the enzymes.  So first, get a pot of water boiling.

A watched pot never boils - this one did, though.  Odd.

Cover and boil the sliced carrots for two minutes:

Add the carrots to some boiling water

You will want to have a pot nearby that has ice water in it.  After two minutes, pull the sliced carrots out of the boiling water and place them directly in the ice water bath to bring the cooking process to a halt.  Leave them chilling in the water for 2 minutes, the exact amount of time that you let them boil.  You'll need to add more ice as it melts.


Chilling in an ice water bath

Here are some nice Berlicum carrots.  We'll eat these for supper. 

Berlicum Carrots - a nice size for eating.

Here is our pile of carrot peelings.  Russ composted all this in the garden, although I'm certain the cows would  have enjoyed eating them.

For the compost pile

After washing, peeling, chopping, blanching, chilling and packing, we ended up with 11 quart freezer bags of carrots all ready to be put into the freezer.


Packed for the freezer

For the remainder of the carrots that we didn't blanch, I put them in the crisper in our refrigerator.  We will eat on these as we need them and give some to our neighbors.  

Salad crisper full of beautiful carrots.

Tonight Tricia made a homemade chicken pot pie with one of our chickens, dicing up some of these carrots to incorporate into the pot pie.  It was sooooo delicious!