Taste Testing Carrots
On Tuesday, Mr Chiots and I tried one of each of those carrots that I harvested on Monday. It was very interesting to be able to try so many different kinds at once. The only problem was that it was difficult to tell which was which on some of them, some of my labels had disappeared from the garden, and we didn’t keep them all separate at harvest. So I was going on shape and size based on the description on the seed packets. *note to self* I must find a better labeling pen
The ‘Muscade’ carrots were probably the best when it came to size of carrots and uniformity, they did very well. They’re a shorter fatter carrot, which are the kinds I like. The ‘Atomic Purple’ did well for size also as did one one yellow variety. The best tasting ones were probably the ‘Napli’ I grew (these are the variety Eliot Coleman calls “sugar carrots”). If you like those little baby carrots from the store you’ll love ‘Short n Sweet’ as they taste exactly the same, they’re small, sweet and very crunchy and had a great texture. The ‘Little Finger’ carrots also were great, nice and orange and with great texture.
The white ones we didn’t like much at all, and one of the yellow varieties didn’t do so well in the cold weather as the texture was off. I grew both ‘Yellowstone’ and ‘Amarillo Yellow’, I’m not sure which was which at harvest. I won’t give them the thumbs down because they might be very delicious if grown and harvested in warmer weather. I have a few seeds left so they’ll be sown this spring and we’ll test again then. I also wasn’t super impressed with ‘Chantenay Red Core’ the carrots didn’t size up as well as the other varieties and they were more difficult to peel because they were highly textured on the outside. Perhaps these are also more of a warm weather carrot.
I still have seeds left for most of these varieties so I’ll grow them again and keep better track and do a better break down for you in 6 months or so. For my fall planting I’ll definitely narrow it down to 2-3 varieties. I think trying new carrots is more for the spring/summer growing season.
Have you found a type of carrot that works well in your climate/soil/garden? Do any of you have a great labeling pen you’d like to recommend that will go the distance in the harsh weather?
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Harvesting Winter Carrots
Eliot Coleman talks about his trouble with voles in The Winter Harvest Handbook. This was the first year we’ve ever had trouble with voles, remember my sweet potatoes? They also ate a lot of my winter beets and were moving in to the carrot patch.
I was planning on leaving the carrots in the ground and harvesting them as needed, but with voles threatening our harvest we decided we should get them all out of the ground. We happened to be having our annual New Year’s sauerkraut family meal yesterday (a few days late), and I thought it would be a perfect time to harvest the carrots (since they’re growing in my mom’s garden).
My niece Hannah was thrilled to help, she wanted to save all the tiny baby carrots and the carrot tops for her guinea pig “Patches”. Every time she’d find a carrot she’d squeal and show it to me. She was super happy when she found a nice hand full of large ones.
These carrots were planted way back in August and have been waiting in the ground. We harvested a yellow one in November to see how they were growing. It was sweet and tasty, but needed to size up a bit.
We had them covered with a floating row cover to protect them from the cold, I meant to cover them with greenhouse plastic but never got around to it. They didn’t seem to mind though. We only lost about 15-20% of the crop to voles, not as bad as we thought.
We planted 10 different varieties of carrots, most from Baker Creek. Some varieties did better than others with the purple ones doing the best of all. We grew both ‘Atomic Red’ and ‘Cosmic Purple’. The ‘Muscade’ carrots did very well, other varieties included: ‘Parisienne’, ‘Little Finger’, ‘Chantenay Red’, ‘Blance a Collet Vert’, ‘St Vallery’, ‘Kind Midas’ and a few I can’t remember any more.
We ended up with a pretty decent harvest, my mom and I both got a tub full of carrots, and Miss Hannah got a HUGE container of greens for her little guinea. I’ll be pairing mine with all those potatoes I harvested this year and venison roasts from the 3 deer Mr Chiots got during hunting season. My mom will most likely do the same since she has venison in the freezer from my dad’s 2 deer.
What’s your favorite way to eat a carrot?
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My Winter Garden in Late December
Yesterday was a beautiful sunny day and relatively warm (around 30). After Mr Chiots and I took the dog on a walk, I decided to head out and uncover the low tunnels to see how everything was doing.
Our temperatures have been much colder than usual here, so I figured things wouldn’t be doing as well as they should be. Usually our temperatures in December are in the 30’s. This December our temperatures have been in the 20’s and the teens. The days have also been very cloudy, which doesn’t help warm up the low tunnels.
I have 2 different varieties of spinach growing in my low tunnel ‘Catalina’ and ‘Giant Winter’. So far they both seem to be doing well, I think the ‘Catalina’ might be doing slightly better. We’ll see which variety starts producing faster when it warms in the spring.
A few things were slightly frosty, but the good thing is that the new growth is still doing well. This means that I’ll be able to harvest very early next spring once the weather warms regularly.
Winter gardening definitely has a learning curve, and the weather greatly affects what the outcome will be. I think if our December was “normal”, I’d be harvesting spinach and arugula right now. With each year I’ll gain knowledge and figure out the planting schedule for my particular climate. I should be doing pretty well in a few years!
How’s your garden growing?
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Visiting Four Season Farm
While Mr Chiots and I were in Maine, we decided to swing by Eliot Coleman’s Four Season Farm. I’ve read all of Eliot’s books, and find his work to be very inspirational. When it comes to winter gardening he’s pretty much the best there is. I wanted to stop by particularly during this time of year because I knew his fall/winter planting would be in full swing.
It was a gray rainy day, but that didn’t dampen our spirits. We were happy to walk around in the drizzle. We even chatted with Eliot for a while and Mr Chiots spent quite a while talking to one of the workers. Of course his gardens were all brimming with beautiful fall/winter produce; radicchio, lettuce of all colors shapes and sizes, lots of spinach, brussels sprouts, carrots, kale and a variety of other things. Here’s a look around the Four Season Farm in early October.
Of course I took particular note of all of the crop protection techniques he describes in his newest book The Winter Harvest Handbook, which I’ve talked about a lot here. It was very interesting to see them in person. They were actually building one of the big cold houses while we were there.
I also picked up a great idea while there: writing the panting date on the plant label. This is such a great idea if you forget to write it down in your garden journal as I often seem to do. I usually write the planting date on the back of my seed packets, but I often forget to write them down elsewhere.
We really enjoyed our visit to Four Season Farm. I was quite happy to see that my fall spinach looked just as good as his. I also noticed a few weeds in his garden *gasp*.
What do you think, impressive isn’t it?
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Four Season Gardening at Chiot’s Run
In late September I planted 2 raised beds with a mix of different kinds of winter crops. I covered them with greenhouse plastic to protect them from the weather when it started to turn cold, about 2 weeks ago. This seems to be working very nicely, we’ve had night time temperatures in the high 20’s and the day time temperatures range from the 40’s to the 60’s.
Since this past week was so warm (in the 60’s during the afternoons), I decided to pull the covers back and give all the greens a good watering with some Neptune’s Harvest. This should get them through the winter, I don’t know if I’ll have to worry about watering again after this.
It looks like these mini greenhouses are providing the right climate for my spinach, it’s growing quite prolifically. I can’t wait to have spinach salads all winter long from this bed. I’m also experimenting with a variety of cold hardy lettuces, celery, arugula, leeks, carrots, kohlrabi, bunching onions, and some other cold-tolerant greens.
At the moment I have 2 raised beds with greenhouse tunnels, one with floating row cover, and one with a cold frame. The one with the cold frame is going to be seeded this week with a variety of winter greens for experimentation to see which ones sprout and do best when started late in the season. From here on out it looks like our highs are only going to be in the 40’s, so it looks like winter is creeping up on us here at Chiot’s Run.
I’m hoping that after a few years I’ll have a good list of which varieties of greens overwinter well in my climate. Eventually, I’m hoping to be able to grow a lot more of my vegetables year round instead of relying on someone else’s produce during the winter. (If you want to learn more about four season gardening I’d highly recommend Eliot Coleman’s book The Winter Harvest Handbook: Year Round Vegetable Production Using Deep Organic Techniques and Unheated Greenhouses)
How’s your winter gardening going?
