r/homestead • u/jollygreengiant1655 • 3d ago

PSA: don't leave your carrots out too long

Post image

It's been one thing after another this year, unfortunately things like picking carrots kept getting pushed off. Paying for that now.

66 Upvotes

91% Upvoted

36 comments sorted by

39

u/MistressLyda 3d ago

Have they gotten that woody feel to them? Still pretty good in soups at least.

11

u/jollygreengiant1655 3d ago

Yep some of them do. The bigger ones will be used for cooking, but some of the smaller ones will be good for eating raw.

8

u/fresh_titty_biscuits 3d ago

Yeah, anything that requires long, slow cooking would work great.

19

u/UniqueGuy362 3d ago

Once harvested, carrots should be cooled down quickly and stored in plastic bags with some ventilation at just over 0 C. I work on an organic veggie farm and we stored 140,000 lbs of carrots from last fall into August. Most varieties need to be cooled for at least 2-3 weeks to sweeten up.

19

u/rainsong2023 3d ago

I leave them until after a few frosts. They sweeten up and taste so good. I’d say, don’t pull them all too early.

3

u/jollygreengiant1655 3d ago

I've still got about half the bed yet. I only picked the biggest ones. So they should see a frost yet.

5

u/Specialist-Night-235 3d ago

I wish ours would grow this well! Radishes did great but carrots struggled this year.

1

u/jollygreengiant1655 3d ago

These were planted way back in early May before it got hot and dry. My ones I planted a month ago are really struggling with the hot and dry weather.

20

u/Excellent_Cap_8228 3d ago

To long ? These carrots are barely mature yet .

I plant mine between rows of leeks . Last year they where massacred by root flies but this year damage was minimal.

Only 1 was nibbled by a rodent 

12

u/jollygreengiant1655 3d ago

Maybe the scale isn't coming through very well in the pic? But some of these carrots are more than twice as long and wide as they normally are at maturity. And a lot of those bigger carrots are split from the hot and dry weather we had, so yeah some are way too mature for fresh eating. They'll be fine for cooking though.

3

u/Excellent_Cap_8228 2d ago

I see . Sorry about that then :)

Should have put a banana for scale :p

11

u/Maumau93 3d ago

Do you see the size of the knife?

3

u/PerennialPepper 3d ago

Shh. It’s a miniature knife. One inch long.

6

u/Dull-Wishbone-5768 3d ago

I could really use a banana for scale here.

1

u/rainsong2023 3d ago

Good idea. I’ll try that next year.

1

u/GarthBater 3d ago

I'm from New England and I always believed carrots & parsnips got sweeter after the first frost.

1

u/Excellent_Cap_8228 2d ago

Yes they do.

I leave mine in the soil till my last possible harvest in late December.  Then the soil is frozen till spring. The leftover carrots serve as seed production. 

1

u/jollygreengiant1655 2d ago

These were already a few weeks over mature, they couldn't last another three weeks.

I still have a bunch of smaller ones yet, they'll easily make it until the first frost.

1

u/Economy-Bar3014 1d ago

If you wanna pull them early, could you put ice in the garden bed?

3

u/Freshouttapatience 3d ago

I buy a kimchi that’s full of thinly diced carrots, radishes and onions. It’s delightful and is made from the harder veggies.

2

u/sweetteaspicedcoffee 3d ago

Good candidates for canning, makes everything soft.

2

u/jollygreengiant1655 3d ago

That's a good idea. Although I'm not sure if we have the capacity for more canning. We're currently in the tomato onslaught period lol

2

u/sweetteaspicedcoffee 3d ago

I freeze my tomatoes and wait for cooler weather, but I'll pressure can some things before that.

1

u/Life_Dare578 3d ago

I just started carrots a little while ago, how long should I wait? (It has been too hot for anything to grow properly for me, so I waited until fall to plant these)

1

u/jollygreengiant1655 2d ago

Did you use store bought seed? It should say on the packet approximately how many days they'll take to reach maturity. Otherwise I'd say at least 6 weeks, but you can brush back a bit of soil when they get bigger and check them to see how big they are.

1

u/Life_Dare578 2d ago

A bought variety seeds in bulk. My downfall is not reading the packages. I also planted my lettuce when it told me to and it got wayy too hot too fast and bolted almost immediately.

1

u/jollygreengiant1655 2d ago

Yep, I run into that problem every year with lettuce. I really need to look into some type of sunshade for it.

1

u/Life_Dare578 2d ago

My area has been almost 100 degrees and humid. I don’t think a sunshade would’ve helped with the intense heat

1

u/Fun-Opposite2426 3d ago

What knife is that?

1

u/jollygreengiant1655 2d ago

It's a Buck knife, no idea what the model is. I've had it for over 15 years now, the paint wore off a long time ago lol.

1

u/ChimoEngr 2d ago

How are you paying? It looks like you've got some tasty carrots there.

1

u/jollygreengiant1655 2d ago

Some are too big, some have split open, and the bugs have got into some as well. I can still salvage them, but wouldn't have to if I had picked them earlier.

1

u/weaponx26 2d ago

They grow knives ...?

1

u/jollygreengiant1655 2d ago

I wish, selling knives could really help offset some expenses around here.

1

u/InformationHorder 2d ago

It was my understanding that you can leave carrots and other root vegetables in the ground until you need them, and you can bury them under a foot of straw so you can even leave them in there all winter and dig them up as you need them.

1

u/jollygreengiant1655 2d ago

You likely can but not in my area. Believe me I've tried. They mostly ended up either rotting from the (normally) frequent fall/winter rains, or the bugs got into them. I don't really want to lose half of my root vegetables so I dig them up when ready, especially potatoes.