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CARROTS
Everyone wonders why I only grow short fat carrots. The answer is ROCKS! Our farm is blessed with great soil, good drainage,
but a lot of rocks. Anytime a carrot hits a decent sized rock, it forks. So instead of a nice long slender carrot,
I'd end up with forked hairy looking things that would be a nightmare to peel and would leave you with little left to eat. I grow
mostly chantenay type carrots--known for being sweet, but also rather short and thick. It's a lot of hard work to
dig out the rocks in any part of the garden to make it suitable for even these types of carrots though, so I do not
usually provide overwhelming amounts of carrots. However, I'm removing rocks from additional parts of the garden little
by little each year, so the area I'll be able to devote to carrots will hopefully grow over time.
I think most people know what to do with carrots, so I don't really have any recipes to add. We do make a creamy carrot soup that is really good--maybe I'll put that up later if I have time. They are also good in soups, stir-fries, shredded on salads, and with roasted vegetables (see the beets page for a recipe). Our rule of thumb that we try to stick to with carrots is that we don't even bother harvesting them and putting them in the fridge unless they are peeled and chopped into carrot sticks. Whenever we do this, we never have extra carrots lying around. However, they can be blanched and frozen too (see green beans page for instructions). Carrot tops are also very tasty and and they taste a lot like parsley. I sometimes throw them in the salad mix if I'm thinning the carrots. Most people, however, don't use the carrot tops and find it annoying if I leave them on, so I generally chop them off. If you would like your carrot tops left on, just let me know and I'd be happy to leave them for you. |