For a week now I have been wanting to get out and spend time cleaning out my garden, but a really bad cold had me laying low. Yesterday I finally felt well enough to get out there and one of the jobs I did was to dig out the carrots. I was very happy with what I was pulling out of the ground. The carrots were well-formed and huge. (The longest carrot you see in the photo is 10 inches (25cm) long.)
For many years I was disappointed with my carrots. So many of them were deformed, with multiple bottoms and twisted shapes. I knew I had to try something different and so this is what I tried.
Where as I used to just till the carrot spot with my rototiller, then plant, I wondered if the carrots were having trouble dealing with the harder clay soil that lay beneath the 3-4 inch (7-10 cm) of loose recently tilled soil. I started tilling the area for the carrots, raking all the loose soil I created by tilling out of the row, then tilling the lower area again, finishing off by raking all of the loose soil I had pulled out, back into the row. This gave me a much deeper layer of loose soil for the carrots to grow in. I think that has made a huge difference in the result.
I also made myself be more ruthless in thinning the newly sprouted carrot plants--no more Mr. Nice Guy. I thinned, making sure each remaining plant had lots of room to itself.
Yesterday after I got the carrots out and washed them off, I selected one and chomped into it. I am happy to report, it tasted delicious.
I put the carrots into a 5 gallon (19 Liter) bucket and packed it with moist sand and placed the container in the crawlspace of the house where it will stay cool, but not freezing throughout the winter, and will be available to us whenever we need carrots.
If you haver nothing else to do, you might want to take a look at my photo-realistic paintings:
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