Harvesting Berlicum Carrots

Saturday afternoon the weather was partly cloudy and balmy with temperatures in the mid-seventies.  Colder weather was on the way so I figured it was a perfect day to harvest the rest of the carrots.  In all I planted three 30 foot rows each of Cosmic Purple Carrots, Atomic Red Carrots and Berlicum Carrots.  I almost forgot about the 10 foot row of Parisienne Carrots I planted.  All have been harvested except for the Berlicum carrots.

Berlicum carrots are a variety named after the town in the Netherlands from which they originated.  They are a little different from traditional varieties in that most of them don't grow to a point.  They are cylindrical and stump-rooted.  Most are pretty plump.  I have them planted on rows since the southern-most part of our garden is low.  I don't want them rotting in the ground.  This planning helped me, because I was standing in mud to harvest them, but they were high and dry, for the most part.

Pile 'o Carrots

Most of the carrots are between 4 and 5 inches long, although there were some on either end of the spectrum and really nice I thought.  While harvesting, I pulled all the winter grass growing along the carrot row and threw over the fence to the cows. They ate all of it and then the chickens came through and cleaned up any scraps.

A stack of carrots next to my 4 inch Leatherman for perspective

I filled up a five gallon bucket and then part of another one with carrots and then carried them to the water hose where the boys and I cleaned them up, saving the good topsoil/water mixture to pour back in the garden.

Ready to wash them off

We were cleaning them up and Benjamin said, "Look Dad, this carrot looks like a shrimp."  I thought he meant that it was small.  When I looked at it, though, he was speaking literally.  The carrot did look like a shrimp (the crustacean)!!

The Shrimp Carrot

When we finished up the cleaning, we had a bunch of nice carrots.  Here are some really nice Berlicum Carrots.  They are good for you and delicious, too!

2014 Berlicum Carrots

So the carrot crop is done and the crop was a success.  We also harvested all the Brussels Sprouts this weekend and cooked them.  They were disappointing.  The majority of them didn't make the little heads like baby cabbages.  They all opened up instead of making heads.  I'll need to research to see what caused this and how to prevent it next year.  That's the way it goes sometimes...

Making Ginger Carrots

We're blessed to have a bumper crop of carrots this year.  Today I picked a nice bucket of cosmic purple carrots and berlicum carrots, washed them up and cut the greens off and fed the greens to the cows.  Even the chickens ran to eat the carrot tops that the cows didn't immediately gobble up.

A nice haul of carrots

Since we've already blanched and frozen several bags full, we decided to make some Ginger Carrots.  These lacto-fermented vegetables are the best and a real favorite of ours.  Benjamin helped me to prep the cosmic purple carrots by slicing off the top and bottom with a sharp knife.

Once they were prepped, we put the shredding blade on the food processor and shredded all of the purple carrots, yielding 16 cups of shredded carrots.

Shredded carrots

I grated 4 tablespoons of fresh ginger.  Ginger smells so good.

Grated Ginger

I poured 16 cups of shredded carrots, 2 tablespoons grated ginger, and 8 teaspoons salt into a big plastic container.

To this I added 1/2 cup of whey.  This was whey that we separated when making kefir.

Adding whey

Next I used the wooden head of a meat tenderizer to pound the carrot mixture together in order to release the juices of the shredded carrots.

Pounding on the shredded carrots

Then I spooned the carrots into jars.

Packing into jars

Using the wooden handle of the meat tenderizer, I packed the carrots into the jar so that there was 1 inch of head-space below the rim.

The 16 cups of shredded Cosmic Purple Carrots filled four pint jars and a half pint jar.

Here is an up-close photo of the Shredded Ginger carrots.  The purple skins of the carrots give the concoction a pretty color.

Beautiful!

We put the lids and rings on tightly and we'll leave at room temperature for 2 - 3 days.  Then we'll place these in the back of the refrigerator and patiently wait for at least 3 months before we open up a jar and begin eating.  Ginger Carrots are so sweet and tangy and delicious.

They've become a favorite of ours.  Tomorrow I'll go buy some more fresh ginger and we will make some more ginger carrots with the remainder of the orange carrots.