Even with daylight savings time, mornings have been dark, and very cold. We’ve turned off the outside water. A line of frost outlines each leaf in the yard. There’s been ice in the outside chicken waterers. One morning it was 22 degrees F. I pulled the last of the green bean plants and fed them to the animals. Brown leaves are piling up in the corners of my vegetable garden. With some relief, I thought that I was done with the garden for the season. But the other day I had a sudden thought. Did I pull the carrots? I had forgotten all about them!
This has happened before. Last time I didn’t remember until after the ground had frozen solid. I had to wait for a thaw to pry them up, by which time the roots had turned to mush. But this time look at what I found underground!
Carrots harvested after the first frost are especially sweet. They’re so good we’ve been eating them raw, but I’ll cook them up, too. Some I’ll dress with honey and ginger. How do you cook your carrots?
The goats don’t need any fancy preparations. They got the tops (and a few of the carrots too small to bother with). There was much delighted munching, crunching and burping.
Now the gardening season is really, truly over.
Love them slowly roasted with some olive oil, thyme, tot of salt & pepper. They get all caramelized. Nothing better than roasting chicken with root veggies like carrots, parsnips, onions, potatoes, and carrots.
Did Phoebe get her own carrot! Do bunnies really enjoy carrots?
never thought of growing my carrots in a window box! i’ m going to try it next year – get some shorty-roots type seed. it should work so that i can find them and keep the weeds out of them until they can get started – always my problem in the garden
thanks, teri!
Those carrots are beautiful! Do you normally grow carrots? Do you leave them out longer intentionally?
I don’t know that I really enjoy cooked carrots, but I have eaten them (begrudgingly) with a brown sugar glaze, and I used to like them cooked with the roast beef. If I eat them cooked now, they’re usually scalloped, or in a faintly cheesy white sauce with other vegetables (and lots of freshly ground pepper). Honey and ginger sounds good to me! I’ll have to try that, a little bowl just for me.
What cute carrots. What kind are they? I have waited too long to harvest fall carrots before with the same results. Whoops! Mine are still in the ground this year. I am hoping they will size up a bit more before I pull them but I may be losing the race against the ground freezing. I need to keep an eye on the weather.
I love carrots raw especially sweetened after a frost, but my favorite way is to simply roast them with other root vegetables from the garden with a drizzle of olive oil, fresh herbs, salt and pepper.
I love carrots ! Roasted, raw, steamed and that delicious treat carrot salad. Your carrots are small beauties.
Did Phoebe get a carrot, or maybe some carrot tops?
Oh, to have a goat or two again!…
Our carrot story is we planted the seeds way too close together, and they crowded each other so badly they couldn’t grow very much.
The carrots are absolutely gorgeous! I’ve only tried growing carrots one time, and they were a flop! Going to try again when we move.
Slice them up and poach in beer or hard cider till tender. Then toss with some butter, chile powder and fresh parsley.
Sound delicious. I will try it. Since I don’t have a garden I stocked up on carrots before Hutchins Farm closed for the season. Thanks.
I can hear the crunching and munching.
“Goat burping.” Cracks me up every time. (What am I, 11?)
I have never gown carrots. Have to give it a try. I still have beans on my plants. Christmas limas. And purple string beans. So when you pull the plants do you just toss to the girls. This is something they can eat? I was worried about giving them. Mine are are all pole beans.vwill they eat the leaves like any other greens you would give to them. Thanks for sharing your pie recipe!
I am going to try poaching in beer or hard cider. Sounds slush. I make a great Guiness stew at St Pats…..love the way the carrots taste then.
I meant delish….dah
The carrots look fantastic. So lucky you remembered them in time.
Burping goats . . .so natural – yet so funny!
Hi All- YES! Phoebe got her very own carrot and tops and ate it up before I though to get a photo. Re growing carrots: you need loose, loamy dirt so their root can go straight down. Carrot seeds are tiny and impossible to space. You’ll have to thin them out when they get about 2-inces tall. I hate doing that, but otherwise you won’t get carrots to eat. The variety in the photo is YaYa. And I think that everyone agrees that Amy’s idea of cooking carrots in hard cider is brilliant. Thanks, Amy!
I juiced my sweet little carrots with the beets and celery that I also grew, and a huge honeycrisp apple, topped off with a squeeze of lemon juice on ice. :-) When I had to thin out the seedlings, I just put them in my salad before the leaves got scratchy.
I’ve recently read about eating carrot tops. Next year I’ll try the thinned seedlings.