When I last posted about the garden, in late August I think, the only vegetable that was still in the ground was carrots. Our plan was to leave them in the ground as long as we could and around Christmas we’d dig up what was left. In the past, we dug them up in early September, cleaned them up and stored them in the refrigerator in the basement. They took up a lot of room and did not keep well. Last year and this year we figured they’d do just as well right in the ground.
This is what the garden looked like in early September:
The first row from the bottom is the lavender. The carrots are in the second and third rows. That third row looks pretty sparse because we planted so late but we wanted to wait to see what would actually grow in the fall.
This is the garden now:
The lavender is resting and should come back next year. Bert has started to dig up the second row of carrots.Here is a close up of the pile of carrots.A few were really huge!Bert hosed them off and needed a scrub brush to get some of the mud off. The very tiny carrots got separated out for a friend’s pet rabbits.The rest of the carrots were laid out to dry on the kitchen table for a few hours.This row of carrots were extra large but were not perfect. I’ll clean them up and they’ll be just right for Daisy (see previous post https://marykisner.com/carrots-for-daisy/ )
When they were finally dry and not so cold I packaged them up into Ziplock bags, standing upright. Then I put them down into paper bags from Trader Joe’s) and set them in the garage.
Overnight they still had lots of moisture in the bags so I opened them all up. They will keep better if they are dry.It will be easy to grab a few for dinner or a snack!
It’s too bad houses today don’t have root cellars, where the conditions are perfect for storing vegetables over the winter! Enjoy!
