First Harvest of the Carrots - January 2017

Sunday afternoon was a stellar day with brilliant sunshine, blue skies and a westerly breeze.  It felt good to be alive.  I pulled down some of the trellises that the butterbeans and sugar snap peas were growing on in order to prepare for spring planting.  It'll be here before we know it.  I looked over at one of the three rows of carrots I have growing and the foliage was lush and green - just beautiful.

But it's what is beneath the surface that tells the tale.  A quick tug and the earth yielded a nice big fat carrot!

I have a bucket full of rainwater that I washed the carrots off in and the brightness of the orange carrot shines through.  On this particular row I would say roughly half are ripe and ready to be pulled.  Time to get busy.

With all the rainfall we've had lately, I need to start pulling them quickly.  The ground is saturated and when root crops sit in water-logged soil, they rot!  It is not a total loss, though.  I'll cut off the bottom part and we can still use the top.

I thought this was a nice picture featuring a nice bounty of carrots with carrot tops right next to a fat cabbage.  This will make for a nice meal or two for sure.

Normally I plant Berlicum Carrots, Cosmic Purple Carrots and Atomic Red Carrots, except this year my inventory was short.  All I had was some Danvers Carrots (normal orange ones) and a little packet of organic carrot seed blend that came free in a box of Kashi cereal.  I planted them and here is what came up:  Some really strange looking white carrots!  I've never grown white carrots.  They are pretty cool. Tricia asked if they are parsnips, but I don't think they are.

There was at least one Cosmic Purple seed in that blend.  When you pull them and wash them, they really shine!

After I cleaned them up, I put them on the patio table to let them dry before bringing them in.  This first harvest filled a 2 1/2 gallon bucket and we've got plenty to go as I staggered the planting to ensure a continued harvest until spring.  We'll eat a lot of these raw, cook some, and blanch and freeze the rest to allow us to eat carrots all year long.

I'll leave with a photo showing a diverse carrot harvest.

They sure look pretty and I know we'll enjoy eating them, too.  If it continues to rain, I'll have to pull the rest of them even if they are on the small side to keep them from rotting in the ground.  I need to move some more topsoil into the garden to raise up the ground level.  That is a good project for this spring when the ground dries up.