Spring carrots

A few days ago (between our rain showers) I finally dug up the rest of my garden carrots. A little late. I should have done this at the beginning of March and not near the end.

The tops of many of the carrots were soft and mushy. Still quite a number of the carrots came out good. The longer the carrot (the farthest from the top wet topsoil) the better the carrot was. I only lost a little more than 1/3 of my carrots. This year it was the top 1/3 of the carrots instead of the year where the pocket gopher got into my garden and I lost the bottom 1/3 of many of my carrots. I am glad I planted lots and lots of carrots last year!

The carrots are good. They have color and moisture unlike the still-good but slowly-drying carrots I have stored in my crawl space from when I dug them last November/December.

Next winter I plan to leave many carrots in the ground again but this time I will protect them better. I will put some straw over them then put plastic or tarps to protect them from getting wet. It appears getting wet was the major reason they started spoiling this year.