BIGGEST HARVEST EVER
When I was growing up Alaska, my mom could not grow carrots. Not because the environment was inhospitable, not because of the permafrost (though that could cause short carrots), but because I would not stay out of the carrot patch. I thought there was nothing better than pulling young carrots and eating them while they were young, tender, and sweet. I don’t know if she ever did get a full-grown carrot back then.
I got yelled at a lot for that but just couldn’t resist.
When my daughters were young and all we had was a balcony, I still wanted them to experience a garden. We grew a small amount of peas and carrots in small planters on the balcony. It didn’t matter that the carrots wouldn’t get to full size in those planters since I always pulled them before they were full-grown, just like when I was a kid.
Growing carrots has been a bit of a struggle for me in North Carolina. First, because as a cool weather crop they need to be planted January through March and my internal planting calendar doesn’t kick in until May (Memorial Day weekend was planting time in every other place I’ve lived). Carrot seed germination rates has also been a struggle here. Though not a total failure, my carrot crops here have been disappointing.
This year I came across a couple of articles about how to improve germination of carrot seeds and tried a couple of different methods. One was to scatter seeds on a moist paper towel and keep it wet. When the seeds sprouted, plant them in the garden. The other was to simply soak them for a day or two before planting then cover them with a board when you first plant them in the garden (remove it when they sprout).
The paper towel method required consistently ensuring the paper towel remained wet for a couple of weeks. That kind of constant attention is a struggle for me. Then, when they were ready to plant, the sprouts were so tangled and ingrained in the paper towel that I could not remove individual sprouts to plant them with proper spacing. As it turned out, the best I could do was tear the paper towel in strips and try to spread the strips out. This meant that there were blobs of seedlings instead of nicely spaced ones.
Soaking the seeds suited me better since I only had to keep the seeds covered with water for a couple of days. That method had its problem though, too. As with the paper towel, I could not separate the seeds for planting at the recommended intervals as they clung together. So, again, I had blobs of seeds.
Because of this issue, I had to continually thin the plants to improve spacing. The chickens were happy with that but all I could think of was the missed opportunity of a getting a carrot!
Yesterday, I harvested about 2/3 of my carrot patch.
I pulled two and a half pounds of carrots – more than I’ve ever harvested from my garden before. I had planted Nantes and Little Finger (yes, that’s the size they are) seeds so I had a combination of large and small carrots. There were some that suffered from being too close together and got pulled up along with the ready-to-harvest plants while they were just getting started.
I will continue to use the soaking method in future plantings but need to find a way to space them better. That’s a problem for another day.
I cleaned them up (the chickens enjoyed the greens), cut them in bite-sized pieces, partially cooked them, packaged them in 1/2 cup increments, and put them in the freezer. I now have ready-to-use carrots for in soups, casseroles, etc.
I’ll harvest the rest of the carrots in a couple of weeks.
Two Chickens Homestead 
It must be a genetic thing! I love carrots and always have a pkg of shredded in crisper…a handful goes in every salad, sprinkled on frozen dinners for extra veggies, in soups, etc. also a box of coin carrots in freezer and frozen peas and carrots to add to anything that I feel needs more veggies!
Sent from my iPhone
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