If you time your carrot harvest just right and store them properly, you can enjoy fresh, crunchy root veggies for weeks on end. To make sure your harvest lasts as long as possible, there are a few tricks to avoid common mistakes that can lead to spoilage.
Harvesting Starts in June
For some varieties, the carrot season kicks off as early as June. However, these early birds are usually “summer carrots”—best eaten fresh or cooked right away rather than tucked away for winter.
If you’re looking to stock up for the long haul, you’ll want to wait until fall to harvest. Make sure you choose the right varieties for this; if you leave early-maturing carrots in the ground too long, they might start to rot or even try to bolt (go to seed). For a fall harvest, patience is a virtue! Wait as long as you can, pulling them out of the garden just before the first hard frost hits.
Digging Them Up Without Damage
The real challenge with harvesting carrots is getting them out of the ground in one piece. Over the growing season, the soil can get pretty packed down. Plus, some varieties can grow up to 8 inches long, which makes pulling them out a bit of a workout.
To ensure your carrots stay fresh in storage, they need to be bruise-free. I recommend using a garden fork with thin tines. Start by loosening the soil around the plants, slowly working your way toward the roots. If you’re growing especially long varieties, you might even need to dig a bit deeper with a hand trowel to free them.
Once the soil is loose, grab the carrot by the green tops and gently ease it out. If you feel like you’re having to tug too hard, stop! Loosen the soil a bit deeper so you don’t snap the root.
How to Store Your Carrots
If any carrots do get nicked or broken during the harvest, don’t worry—just use those first. You can chop and freeze them, or even dry and pulverize them to make a great homemade carrot powder for seasoning soups and stews.
For the perfect specimens you want to store, trim the greens off about half an inch to an inch above the root. The best way to keep them crisp is to bury them in a mix of sand and soil that stays slightly damp. If you have a cool basement or a root cellar, that’s the perfect spot to keep your crate of sand-packed carrots all winter long.
