How long can I keep carrots in the garden?

[Ridgerunner]

I keep mine in the ground over winter. I just mulch them and dig or pull them as I use them. I have not had a problem even if the ground freezes, they stay sweet. Just make sure you use them before it warms up and they start growing again. Once they start growing, they get really bitter.

My problem is to get them to sprout and stay alive in the summer early enough so they mature enough before the freeze. Sometimes I make it and sometimes I don't.

 

[HunkieDorie23]

I grew carrots this year and I read that you didn't need to harvest them until you used them. I still have some in the garden and I also grew some in containers and they are still green and in the dirt. I am in Zone 6a, SE Ohio. I just pull them and use them.

 

[trunkman]

Wow, thanks for all the great responses, I haven't had time to check all the great advice you've all posted for quite a few weeks now. Anyway, this year is the first time I ever tried carrots. I planted some last spring and they did pretty good. Then in late July and early August I planted a fall crop in the same raised bed. My fall crop really took off and I really haven't touched them till Thanksgiving when I picked about 2 pounds worth for the feast, and man were they good and sweet. I still have an area of about 3 feet by 4 feet still doing very well. We've had several nights of upper 20's temps and they are still as vibrant as if it were in the mid 70's and it's December 26th already. Yes I am going to cover them this week so I don't lose them cuz they were so sweet when I had them with Thanksgiving dinner. If you're wondering, they are planted in a raised bed in loose soil that I've been working on for years, not to mention the chicken manure compost that I've been adding to the soil for the past two years. Here is a pick of the Thanksgiving carrots...

The soil in my raised beds is nice and dark, very easy to turn, which I do with garden spoon in the spring and when I do a second crop in summer I can do by hand with no tools at all. This took many years of adding compost tho, when I started my soil was Carolina clay. Ok, I'll shut up now, thank you all for your responses..Happy Gardening!!

 

[vfem]

WTG Trunk! I just picked some yesterday from the garden for our Christmas dinner.

I gotta say FRESH carrots roasted with brown sugar are AMAZING! Best brown sugar glazed carrots I've ever made. My daughter gobbling them down like candy. I still have my carrots out in the garden, easily about 40 more out there. I haven't covered them and I don't know what happened to my hay bale I had set aside for the garden. I think maybe hubby gave it to the neighbor since it looked like I was done with them in the chickens' coops. Oh well....

Can't wait until February when I start another bean of carrots for spring.

 

[trunkman]

Vfem, the brown sugar roasted carrots sound great, I've never had them, can I have the recipe PLEASE??? I probably have about 100 left in the garden and the greenery is still a vibrant green, I didn't know they can take the cold so well. Anyway, I started building 6 new 4 foot by 7 foot raised beds this weekend, (free lumber) from work. I plan on filling them all with cold weather crops in February, then summer crops in May and June...Can't wait to start.. God love the South!!

 

[vfem]

Easy peasy... just throw your carrots in a glass pan. Oven at 400 degree. Cover in 1/2 cup of brown sugar, dash of salt and 2 tbsp of water and roast for 20-30 minutes until you can pierce easily with a fork.

 

[trunkman]

Thank you vfem!!

 

[i_am2bz]

This was my first year for carrots, & I definitely did not plant enough!! I only have about 3-4 left out in my raised bed, & the frost doesn't seem to faze them in the least. They took a lot of attention to get going (I covered the seeds with wet newspaper until they sprouted, it took about 2 weeks), but after that I barely had to look at them!

On a similar note...my radishes did MUCH better with a fall planting than they did in the spring. The spring plants didn't bulb at all, but my fall ones were bigger than golf balls.

 

[jhook1997]

I'm in lower VA, put mulch on mine and they stayed out all winter. We just ate some!

 

[catjac1975]

You can put hay bales over them and just move them when you want to dig some.