Crunchy, Colorful Carrots

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As long as the soil is kept moist, spring sowings usually sprout within 10 days, but in summer you probably will need a shade cover to keep the sun from drying out the soil. An old blanket, a double thickness of burlap or a cardboard box held in place with bricks will work. Check beneath the shade cover daily to see if you need to sprinkle on a bit more water, and remove it altogether after five or six days. Many market gardeners, such as Charlotte Swancy of Riverview Farms in Ranger, Ga., find that pelleted seeds, which are coated with fine clay, are easier to coax out of the ground in summer, making them worth their extra cost.

Swancy uses drip irrigation to keep her summer-to-fall carrots from going thirsty, and any type of watering is more effective when carrots are mulched. Besides helping to retain soil moisture, several thin layers of fine-textured grass clippings or a 1-inch-deep blanket of composted leaves (or other weed-free mulch) will deter weeds, help cool the soil and keep growing carrots from getting green shoulders — a common side effect seen when the roots swell and push up toward the sun. Carrots exposed to significant fluctuations in soil moisture also tend to crack, and cracked carrots don’t store as well as perfect ones.

AN IDEAL HARVEST

If you dream of perfect rows of evenly spaced carrots, begin by sorting through your seeds and picking out the largest ones (large seeds produce big, sturdy sprouts). Then lay a piece of chicken wire on the ground to use as a grid, and place seeds exactly where you want them to grow. If you want both baby carrots and heavy-rooted mature specimens, space seeds 2 inches apart, and pull every other one when a few samples show roots with good color that are wider than a pencil — that’s your baby carrot crop. Then pull or dig the mature carrots when they are ready. Carrots often are less uniform in size and color than other vegetables, so it’s best to start harvesting them based on what you see (and taste) when you pull a few samples.

It’s fun to use a carrot’s feathery leaves as a handle while you’re munching it, but it’s best to cut them off as soon as you harvest your carrots. If you don’t, the leaves will draw moisture away from the roots. Even under refrigeration, carrots that hold their tops quickly become limp. Carrot bunches at the supermarket have trimmed tops, so that only enough leaves remain to hold the bunch together.

Some lucky gardeners are able to leave their mature carrots in the ground and harvest them as needed. But for most of us, the safest place to store carrots is in the refrigerator. Critters roaming through your garden often stop to take a few bites from overwintering carrots, and several weevils and other insects can sabotage crops that are left in the soil too long. Carrots that are dug, trimmed of their tops, washed and patted dry before being placed in plastic bags in the refrigerator will keep for several months. When they begin to shrivel or sprout, you have a great excuse for making a delicious cinnamon-spiced carrot cake.

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