Advice on Carrots

I have got some carrots sown in containers in my tunnel...hopefully I will be able to use these fairly early ..

I have some more early carrot seed to sow outside ,then I have my main crop seed also ..

Providing all goes to plan and we get to the start of winter , do I leave the main crop in the ground ? if so how long will I be able to continue to use them without winter damage . Or do I lift a certain amount and store ,if this the case how best do I store them ?

Dave

 

Hi Davy, I live surrounded by carrot fields.
The farmers leave them in the ground until they want to lift a crop - can be all winter.
They cover the field over with a big thick mulch of straw.
Those carrots come out of the ground just perfect.

 

Mulch would definatelly be the way to go. Some of the plotholders at my allotments struggled to get parsnips/carrots out of the frozen ground last year. I'm planning to grow my real late carrots in the tunnel which should make thngs easier.

My Grandad used to "clamp" his carrots on the garage bench in damp sand. Layer of carrots (none touching) then cover with sand, then another layer of carrots etc etc. He did the same thing with beetroot too.

Steve...

 

Have you tried / trying Nantes Frubund (T & M) ? Supposed to be the ideal over winter carrot (well, according to the marketing blurb!). A number of people on another forum tried it year before last with mixed success - but those that succeeded had a really good, early, crop.

I have a packet of seeds waiting (it was waiting last Autumn too :( )

 

I have Royal Chhantenay and Early Nantes for periodic sowing through the season and a variety Dave W grew last year for through the winter "Autumn King 2" from Marshalls. Seed packet quotes Harvest July to November, can also be left in the ground through winter This suits us fine as we would like to be able to have the freshest veg at all times, we will see how it goes in reality though through this season.

I'd be interested in your results with the Nantes Frubund though.

Steve...

 

Hi Steve and Kristen
Thanks for your imput ..
I have got 'Autumn King 2 ' and 'F1 Artemis' as maincrop and 'F1 Trevor' as an early cropper I bought mind from Moles Seeds..
I am going to make some raised beds in the next couple of days and improve the soil within these .I would like to have carrots for the longest period possible ..

Dave

 

In the past I've always left my winter carrots in the ground but this year I decided to lift and store. I lifted them in mid November and stored in peat in boxes in the greenhouse. I did however leave one in the ground and dug it up today to compare it with the stored ones.
The one I dug up has some slug damage but is still perfectly edible. Those taken from storage are showing signs of sprouting and secondary root growth but again are perfectly edible at present.
I suspect that the greenhouse was not the best place to store as on a sunny day it gets quite hot even in mid-winter. Next year I'll put the storage boxes in the shed or garage.

Carrot on left is the one dug up, other two are from storage.

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By jiminy you're right!

Overwintering carrots in the ground is going to give me an earlier crop than fiddling about with delicate little dears ... and I've got some Autumn King seed lying around I think.

I'll sow some "FireCrop" as an experiment though.

 

Mine were left in the ground thru the snow with no mulch & were fine. Like has been said, mulch is the way to go if you want to pull some during the frost period, unless you hire a breaker.

 

It was fortunate that I lifted our this year as we had about 8 weeks of snow and frost when it would have been impossible to lift them.
It was the end of January before I managed to extract a parsnip!

 

You guys may have been colder than us - we had -10C for two days just before XMas - but I had no difficulty lifting anything.

I do wonder if that is down to my "lazy" raised beds - for heavy clay they do drain quite well, and have got reasonably / increasingly friable over the last few years.

Or maybe it just wasn't very cold here ? (Felt like it though ... )

 

Thinking with my proposed raised beds I can cover quite easily to keep worst of winter weather off ..
Fingers crossed .. Theory is good

Dave

 

Does she go up "Thrombosis Hill" then?