Harvesting Winter Carrots
Eliot Coleman talks about his trouble with voles in The Winter Harvest Handbook. This was the first year we’ve ever had trouble with voles, remember my sweet potatoes? They also ate a lot of my winter beets and were moving in to the carrot patch.
I was planning on leaving the carrots in the ground and harvesting them as needed, but with voles threatening our harvest we decided we should get them all out of the ground. We happened to be having our annual New Year’s sauerkraut family meal yesterday (a few days late), and I thought it would be a perfect time to harvest the carrots (since they’re growing in my mom’s garden).
My niece Hannah was thrilled to help, she wanted to save all the tiny baby carrots and the carrot tops for her guinea pig “Patches”. Every time she’d find a carrot she’d squeal and show it to me. She was super happy when she found a nice hand full of large ones.
These carrots were planted way back in August and have been waiting in the ground. We harvested a yellow one in November to see how they were growing. It was sweet and tasty, but needed to size up a bit.
We had them covered with a floating row cover to protect them from the cold, I meant to cover them with greenhouse plastic but never got around to it. They didn’t seem to mind though. We only lost about 15-20% of the crop to voles, not as bad as we thought.
We planted 10 different varieties of carrots, most from Baker Creek. Some varieties did better than others with the purple ones doing the best of all. We grew both ‘Atomic Red’ and ‘Cosmic Purple’. The ‘Muscade’ carrots did very well, other varieties included: ‘Parisienne’, ‘Little Finger’, ‘Chantenay Red’, ‘Blance a Collet Vert’, ‘St Vallery’, ‘Kind Midas’ and a few I can’t remember any more.
We ended up with a pretty decent harvest, my mom and I both got a tub full of carrots, and Miss Hannah got a HUGE container of greens for her little guinea. I’ll be pairing mine with all those potatoes I harvested this year and venison roasts from the 3 deer Mr Chiots got during hunting season. My mom will most likely do the same since she has venison in the freezer from my dad’s 2 deer.
What’s your favorite way to eat a carrot?
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The Low Winter Sun
This time of year the sun is very low in the sky. I hate that the days are so short, but I love the golden light that bathes the front rooms of the house in the afternoon. Our porch roof keeps the sun out in the summer when it’s high in the sky, but this time of year the sun is low enough to come streaming in. I simply love it.
Often in the afternoon you’ll find me sitting on the sofa in the sun reading or doing some work. I take in as much sun as I can get this time of year. In the summer I enjoy the evening just as the sun is starting to set, this time of year mid-afternoon is my favorite time of the day.
Do you have a time of day that you love?
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Quote of the Day: Hal Borland
Year’s end is neither an end nor a beginning but a going on,
with all the wisdom that experience can instill in us.
~Hal Borland
I know many people that make New Year’s resolutions, I don’t, never have. It is however, a great time to sit down and think about the previous year, learning from past mistakes and successes and trying to take those lessons into the coming year. I find that I do this better throughout the year rather than at this busy time of year, I try to take stock of how things are going often and make small adjustments rather than making big drastic changes at New Year’s.
Do you make resolutions? What are some of the ones you have for 2011?
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Happy New Year!
Mr Chiots and I usually get together with friends for New Year’s Eve, and have a celebration full of fun food and games. Sadly, this year we had to work. We rang in the New Year with clients and all their guests.
We’ll pretend it’s tonight and toast again for our celebration. Here’s to a fantastic 2011.
Do you stay up and ring in the New Year?
