How Do You Know When Your Carrots Are Ready to Pull

While carrots are certainly not the almost expensive veggie at the grocery store, most families eat a lot of them. In fact, carrots are amongst the about popular vegetables in the world. They are likewise a staple ingather for many home gardeners. While nosotros have already written about the nuances of growing direct carrot roots and the importance of thinning carrot seedlings, we've never shared information on when to harvest carrots for peak flavor and shelf life. This article will teach you when to harvest carrots based on both how you plan to use them and when they were planted. Allow's dig in.

Homegrown carrots are a real treat, if you know when to harvest them.

How do you know when to harvest carrots?

Growing carrots is an exercise in patience. Going from tiny seed to thick root when you can't see what'southward happening beneath the soil can seem daunting, peculiarly for new gardeners. Carrot seeds take a long time to germinate, and the delicate seedlings sometimes autumn prey to hungry slugs, rabbits, and other garden critters. Merely, if you care for them properly by making sure they receive plenty h2o and sunlight (and yous manage to protect them from those critters), your carrot crop will before long exist prepare to harvest.

There are several ways you lot can effigy out when to harvest carrots. The first is based on the planting date and the number of days it takes each different carrot variety to mature. The 2d is based on visual cues. In the adjacent two sections, I'll share more about how each of those two methods works. Then, we'll talk over the subtle differences betwixt harvesting carrots for immediate eating and harvesting carrots that you intend to store for later consumption.

Carrot seedlings are delicate, but it won't take long for them to turn into large plants with thick, flavorful roots.

When to harvest carrots based on the days to maturity

Just like tomatoes or peppers, each carrot variety matures at a slightly dissimilar rate. The "days to maturity" noted in the seed catalog or on the seed package is how many days it volition take that particular variety to go from seed sowing to full-size root.

Some carrot varieties, similar 'Napoli' and 'Mokum', are gear up to pick in 55 days, while others, like 'Danvers', take 65 days. Long-maturing carrot plants, like 'Merida' and 'Mignon', take 80+ days. Though yous might think it's the instance, the days to maturity of each variety has little to do with the size of the fully grown carrot. In that location are some small carrots that take a long time to mature, just as in that location are some large carrots that mature relatively apace. If you lot have a short growing season and want carrots that grow chop-chop, be certain to choose a variety that requires a shorter number of days to maturity. If yous programme to leave your carrots in the ground for autumn and/or winter harvest, a selection with a longer number of days to maturity may be all-time.

Each diversity of carrot requires a dissimilar number of days to maturity. Shown here are 'Snow Man' 70 days, 'Yellowstone' lxx days, 'Purple Elite, 75 days, and 'Napoli' 55 days.

Picking carrots at the right stage of growth

The good news is that, unlike tomatoes and peppers, carrots are very forgiving. They tin can sit in the ground for weeks beyond their maturity date with fiddling to no ill effects, even if they are exposed to a frost or freeze. Yes, sometimes carrots left in the ground way also long will split open, but this isn't the norm. For carrots, the number of days to maturity is more than of a proposition.

One of the perks of growing carrots is that you tin can option them at pretty much whatsoever stage. If you want slender baby carrots for a gourmet repast in the early spring, you can tug them from the soil in as little equally 30 or 40 days. But if you want total-size roots, wait until you striking the days to maturity noted on the seed packet or even a few weeks beyond that. It would be easy to make notation of carrot-planting 24-hour interval on your calendar or in a garden periodical so you lot can keep track of when it's time to start thinking about making the harvest.

For full-sized carrots, wait until the days to maturity date has passed. You can even wait several weeks across that, if you'd like.

When to harvest carrots based on visual clues

If yous don't want to mess around with keeping rails of days to maturity, there's another, more casual, way to know when to harvest carrots. I abound half-dozen to eight different types of carrots in my garden every year, and I sow a new row of seeds every few weeks all flavor long. This ways I always have carrots "in stock". But it makes it a challenge to remember which row was planted when and what variety is growing there. And then, my primary method for knowing when to pick carrots is through visual cues, namely looking at their shoulders.

Checking carrot shoulders

Effectually near the time I think they'll be ready, I bank check the shoulders of the plants every few days. The shoulder of a carrot is the top of the root, just below where the greens emerge. Unless yous cover them with mulch or compost, the shoulders of carrots naturally peek upward out of the soil as they mature. The shoulders as well starting time to widen to the mature girth of the root.

If the shoulders are only as thick as a pencil, you can choice and use them equally gourmet baby carrots. If you lot harvest them when they attain as thick as a thumb, the skin will be very thin, and they are great for fresh eating. Just, if you await until they are between the diameter of a nickel and a quarter, y'all'll take the largest, juiciest roots. Carrots this size are excellent for cooking. Large roots like this will have slightly thicker pare. This is the stage where the carrots are improve for long-term storage, too.

Though these carrots weren't thinned, it's like shooting fish in a barrel to come across their shoulders popping out of the soil. They are thick and conspicuously ready for harvest.

In addition to knowing when it's time to dig carrots, information technology's also important to consider the time of day to make your harvest and the best soil atmospheric condition for the job. Allow's talk about that next.

The all-time time of day to dig carrots

If possible, harvest your carrots with a garden fork first thing in the morn, when the plant is less stressed and not wilted or strained from the estrus of the mean solar day. This is specially important if yous plan to store your carrots long-term. You want them to have the highest internal moisture content possible so they are less likely to desiccate during storage. Still, if you volition be eating your carrots within a few days, the time of day that you make the harvest doesn't matter quite as much. That being said, at that place are a few more factors to consider when it comes to harvesting carrots for immediate employ. Let me share them with you in the post-obit department.

Water your carrot patch the day before excavation the roots if you program to eat them before long.

When to harvest carrots for immediate eating

Aside from the time of day, soil wet weather besides play a role in determining when to harvest carrots for fresh eating in salads, soups, and recipes. In add-on to making them easier to pull out of the ground, watering your carrot patch the twenty-four hour period earlier you harvest ensures the roots are juicy and flavorful. This is particularly important if you've had an extended dry spell or constant fluctuations between wet and dry soil throughout the growing season. I oft wait to harvest my carrots until the day afterwards a squeamish, deep rain. It makes the process a lot more fun (and far less dusty!).

Harvesting is likewise easier if you have good soil. Loamy soil is best, but if you have clay soil, y'all tin can make harvests easier past adding lots of compost to loosen it.

Carrots are easier to pull from moist soil. Just be certain to brush off the excess dirt before storing the roots, but don't wash them.

When to harvest carrots for storage

At that place are two basic ways yous can store carrots for time to come use. The first is inside, either in plastic numberless kept in a fridge or a root cellar, or in boxes of damp sand in a root cellar or garage. The other is to store them in the ground, right where they are growing. Let's talk about each option and how it influences when to option your carrots.

Harvesting carrots for indoor storage

Harvest carrots just as you would for fresh eating, except wait 3 or 4 days after watering your carrot patch, rather than digging them upwardly the side by side twenty-four hours. If the roots are too wet when they become into storage, they could develop rot. Dig the roots, permit them sit down in a shady spot for only 2 or three hours, brush off as much of the dried soil equally possible, and put them into storage. The goal is for the roots to have as much internal wet as possible but not too much external moisture.

Storing carrots in the ground

Don't harvest your carrots at all. At the end of every growing flavor, I leave two or 3 rows of carrots in the footing. I encompass them with a 4- or 5- inch-thick layer of shredded leaves or harbinger held into place with a piece of pinned-downwardly floating row cover or a plastic mini tunnel. They sit nether at that place all wintertime long. When I desire to harvest a few roots, I button aside the mulch, dig effectually in the soil, and pull upwards the roots. Delish! Carrots and many other root crops are reasonably cold-tolerant. You can harvest the roots even when the ground freezes every bit long as y'all have a thick layer of mulch in place. They overwinter beautifully for me in my Pennsylvania garden.

Despite the snow on the footing in the background of this photo, I only dug some fresh carrots from nether a layer of mulch and row embrace in my garden.

More tips for harvesting carrots

1. Carrots are biennials. That means they produce only greenish growth during their kickoff year. If the roots are not harvested and left in the ground all winter, the following leap the plants develop flowers. As the flower stalk grows, the root shrivels, so you lot'll want to harvest any overwintered carrots first thing in the bound.

   

   Carrots are biennial which means they don't produce flowers unless the roots are overwintered. Harvest overwintered roots before they produce blooms.

2. Carrots that are forked or gnarly were either grown in rocky soil or soil that was not prepared properly. They need deep, loose soil to form directly roots. Also, never transplant carrot seedlings equally doing so always leads to forking.
3. Use a long-handled shovel or a slender-bladed perennial transplanting shovel to harvest longer varieties of carrots. Using a trowel could pb to a broken-off root.
4. Practise not pull carrots to harvest them (unless you have the most perfect, loose soil on the planet!). Always dig them out. Otherwise, yous'll have lots of broken roots or green tops that break off the root entirely.

Carrots are an important ingather for many domicile gardeners. With the right harvesting technique, y'all tin savor them every bit fresh eating or store them for long-term utilise.

Knowing when to pick carrots isn't hard, just it is essential for harvesting a successful crop. Hopefully these tips accept given you all the info you demand to dig bunches and bunches of delicious, crunchy carrots, full of beta carotene, vitamin A, and nifty taste!

For more than on growing root crops, check out the following articles:

• Thinning carrots
• How to prevent forked carrots
• Growing carrots in pots
• Growing garlic
• Curing onions
• When to harvest potatoes

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Source: https://savvygardening.com/when-to-harvest-carrots/

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