How long can I leave Carrots in the ground?

My Carrots this year have been extremely good. B all to do with me more that it's been the wettest summer here I can remember (I'd rather had lousy Carrots and good summer). Not only do I have large numbers (about 200 still in the ground) but the Carrots are very big and surprisingly still very sweet and tasty.
Normally we would have scoffed the lot by now or at the very latest by the end of September/beginning of October, this year we have hardly made a dent yet on the crop and unless the horse starts getting about 10 a day I'll have Carrots well into The New Year. I don't particularly want to lift them and plowter about with boxes of sand but also don't want them to rot in the ground? I live in Scotland so not the warmest place but the Carrots are in a raised area of the garden so drainage is good. When the weather gets bad I could cover them with a plastic cloche which would give some protection. Just not sure how best to take advantage of the bumper crop so any advice gratefully received.

 

Have you thought about getting a bunch of them out and freezing them? I imagine you wouldnt be able to do that for the whole crop otherwise you'd have a freezer full of just carrots! lol. But if you just got a load of them out you know no matter what you have some in the freezer.

 

They should be ok in the ground if you can keep the frost off it.

 

I have never used sand boxes, my OH always freezes them and they have always been just fine.

 

Thanks all. I doubt I could totally keep the frost off them when into The New Year even with a cloche so looks like I'll need to find space in the freezer.....good excuse to polish off some very nice ice cream which I had intending on keeping for a special occasion! Do you bother to blanch or not? I reckon if I lift the Carrots say in September they will be all gone by Feb /March as I make a lot of soup. I don't see them lasting longer than that.

 

Make Carrot Whiskey out of the liquid you boil them in before freezing

 

I had a good crop last year and what I did was dig a small hole in my greenhouse put down a thin layer of straw, laid the carrot's on this making a small heap,recovered with another thin layer of soil,placed a piece of carpet on top of this,them all I had to do when I wanted some for meals was scrap of a bit of soil and straw get what I wanted and recovered.I kept them like this until they where all used up about middle of March and they where just as good as when I dug them out of the ground.

 

Are you not leaving them open to carrot root fly, the longer you leave them in the ground?

Cant grow them myself since carrot root fly struck some years ago.

 

Not tried fine mesh?

 

No, truth is I'm not that desperate for carrots.

Was just thinking that once the blighter's get going you get stuck with them every year.

 

You reckon they're endemic in the ground that carrots are grown in? I thought they flew in?

 

Dunno, after getting the problem of inedible carrots for a few years I gave up on them.

 

Just found this on the RHS site...

• Protect vulnerable crops by surrounding them with 60cm (2ft) high barriers made of clear polythene to exclude the low-flying female flies, or cover the plants with insect-proof netting, such as Enviromesh. It is essential to practise crop rotation with these methods, otherwise adult carrot flies may emerge within the protected crop from overwintered pupae in the soil