Carrots

If what it says on the seed packet is true, we plant about 4000 carrots a year.  We actually only get a fraction of that as they can be poor germinators and also require thinning out.  That said we do like to eat them fresh and love them in purees during the winter or blanched and added to soups and stews.  Our soil is stony so shapes are a tad erratic, who cares, an amusingly shaped vegetable can keep Jarvo entertained and in giggles for hours.

Planting, care and maintenance

We plant our carrots in late spring or early summer, usually May here.  We dig parallel trenches, wet the soil in the bottom of the trench then sprinkle the seeds along the trench as evenly as possible.  Jarvo's fat fingers do not allow him to place the seeds in the trench and they are way too fiddly anyway so just sprinkle and hope for the best.  Windy days should be avoided.  Cover the seeds with a thin layer of soil and press down.  As we mentioned, we have stony soil so one year we attempted to plant the seeds in toilet roll tubes in sand and peat....epic bloody fail, just go wonky shapes.

Carrots can be annoyingly patchy and you probably get a huge clump then sod all for a few feet and so on.  Thankfully, carrots are easy to identify once they have broken the surface which is handy when thinning out.  Be very careful when thinning so you don't just rip all the plants up.  We don't fuss around too much and tend to just let them go which is fine if you intend to harvest all at the same time.  Weeding should also be undertaken carefully.

Harvesting

You will see the plants start to look a bit dodgy, yellowing foliage.  Looking closely you will notice the tops of the carrots poking out above ground, it's time to harvest.  Use a good fork and give yourself some space around the plant.  Ideally you have a second person to gently tug on the foliage as you lift the fork.

Freezing and Storing

Get to work straight away after harvesting.  If you have a dark cool room, wooden crates and sand you can cut off the tops and store the best ones in damp sand making sure they are not touching and remember to check regularly.  Otherwise you can trim the ends off, peel, slice and then blanch in boiling water for 4 minutes, cool rapidly, ice is good, then bag and freeze.  They will be great in soups and stews and as a veg.  If you don't blanch they will seem limp and are crap as a veg but ok for cooking and making into a tasty puree for serving with a roast.