Storing Carrots

Carrots (internet photo)

Our vegetable garden at Wiese Acres was disappointing this year. It was a year of extreme temperatures, both hot and cold; wind that wanted to pick up the entire garden and move it to the next county; and extreme drought.  We grew enough to eat fresh and preserve for ourselves for winter use, but that garden plot just was not going to produce enough for us to provide fresh produce to the food pantries and homeless shelters like we often do. We did, however, have a nice crop of carrots.

Not all carrots are created equal when it comes to growing or storage. In a previous blog, I discussed the carrot varieties that grow best in certain types of soil. For storage, I have found Chantenay, Imperator, and Danvers all have good storage characteristics, and this year, Chantenay proved to be my best producer as well.

Carrots can be left in the ground through light frosts but are best harvested before real hard frosts. I know some of our ancestors left carrots in the ground over the winter and harvested them in spring. I tried that one year. Yeah, I think they only did that because they didn't have a better storage option. The texture of those frozen solid carrots was sort of like styrofoam. They were ok for cooking in soups or grinding for carrot cake, but not much else. So, after that experiment, I now dig the carrots after frost, but before ground freeze-up. 

Carrots will store fresh for up to six months, if they are handled properly. I do keep a close eye on mine in storage, though, and if they start to lose quality, I freeze or can what is left. I'll tell you how I do that in a later blog article.

Carrots need to be mature before harvest for the best storage life. Immature carrots tend to go limp or spoil in storage. One way to know if carrots are mature is to simply keep track of the growing time for the particular variety you have planted. If your variety says 90 days to maturity, that's generally about what it takes. Another way is to check the size of your carrots against the expected size of the type you planted. If your variety is expected to obtain a size of one inch at the shoulders and six to eight inches in length, it is probably mature when it reaches that size.  Color can also be an indicator of maturity.  Standard carrots are a deep, rich orange when mature. You can also taste test your carrots to determine maturity. If the texture is firm and crisp and the flavor is sweet, it's harvest time.

I usually try to find a day where it has been dry for awhile before I dig the carrots.  That was not a problem at all this year!  The only reason for this is because it makes it easier to brush the clinging soil off the carrots. I prefer to not wash root vegetables before storing them because the skins are quite tender when they are first dug and the more you handle them, the more likely you are to damage that skin and open the root for bacteria, mold, and fungal infection. Research has shown that unwashed carrots do keep longer and maintain flavor and odor better than washed carrots.

If you do choose to wash before storage, make sure they are allowed to air dry adequately before putting them in whatever storage method you choose.

Anyway, back to the garden.  Cool, cloudy days are great days for harvesting carrots. The first roots dug or pulled usually stay on the surface of the garden or in a basket until I am done with the last ones. Cool, cloudy days make it easier to keep them fresh while they wait for me to get done digging the rows.

I trim the tops to about 1/4 inch above the carrot shoulders.  I leave those trimmed tops lie right on the garden soil and compost them in to help loosen the soil for next year's crop. Then, I lightly brush the soil off the carrots, being careful not to damage the tender skin.

The next step is to sort the carrots by size.  The larger the root, the better the storage potential.  Smaller roots are best used first. Any damaged carrots (you know, those that you sometimes get a little impatient towards the end of the digging and knick them with the potato fork or pull it up too quickly, leaving the tip of the root still in the ground), should also be sorted out and either used or preserved by freezing or canning right away. 

Once sorted, I carefully place the sorted piles in baskets, again being careful not to bruise them. Any bruised area is an opportunity for spoilage to begin. Bruising and shock also stimulates the production of ethylene, which causes bitterness and off odors.  Then, I get to decide how I am going to store them.

Growing up, we had a root cellar. All root vegetables were stored in that dark, moist, creepy (to my childhood mind) place that was at the perfect temperature and humidity to keep fresh food available all winter long. Carrots were left in wooden bushel baskets, with layers of newspaper, straw, sand, or sawdust between them.  Some people still store carrots this way, although root cellars have become few and far between.

I don't have a root cellar where I live now, but I have a cold storage room that closely mimics the conditions in those old root cellars. I either store my carrots in there, or in one of the refrigerators in the summer kitchen. The reason I don't always store my carrots in the cold room is because apples and carrots don't appreciate living together. The gases from the apples cause the carrots to become bitter. I don't have a good way to keep them separated enough, so when I have both crops to store, I usually put the carrots in one of the refrigerators that I set to stay at around 38 degrees.

Unwashed carrots ready for storage

When storing in the refrigerator, I layer them in plastic bags that I have cut slits into in several places.  I use the 2.5 gallon zipper top plastic bags, but any food grade plastic bag will work. The slits allow the carrots to breathe while still maintaining the 95 to 98% humidity they like to stay crisp and firm. I used to place paper towels between the layers of carrots in the bags, but have found that is extra work with no difference in the storage quality of the carrots. This method of storage would work in any cold storage area, but in the cold room, I prefer something that is a bit more protective of the roots.

Cold storage bucket

When I store them in the cold room, I use a 5 gallon bucket that I have drilled air holes into the sides, bottom, and lid in several places. The carrots are layered in those in the same way they are in the plastic bag and stored at the same temperature as the refrigerator. You'll notice on the photo that I drill the holes from the inside of the bucket out - that minimizes rough edges on the inside of the bucket that may damage the vegetables.

There are some advantages to using a refrigerator, if you have the space to do so. Layering them in the clear plastic bags gives you much better visibility to see if any are starting to spoil. With the buckets, I end up taking all the carrots out every month or so to check how they are doing. In the clear plastic bags, I can just turn the bag over and look carefully. It is also easier to maintain the high levels of humidity in the refrigerator than it is in the larger cold storage room.

Even with the best storage option, carrots don't last forever, so in my next article, I'll talk about how to preserve them longer by either freezing or canning.