Carrot Harvest 2011

We had a nice warm day today. So Henry and I took advantage and got out to dig up the last of the carrots. (It's been getting increasingly unpleasant to go out and dig up a few before each meal.) We've been eating them regularly since August so this shows about 75% of the total. One day I plan to weigh every piece of food that comes out of the garden in a year. I have visions of the kids getting really excited about this idea and doing it along with me - now I just have to hope I end up with the right kind of kids, the ones that don't use words like lame.

This year's harvest is not as great as 2009 (2010 carrot harvest was non existent due to a lack of watering in the spring) but I think we ended up with a pretty decent amount that should last us most of the winter. Of course though this includes lots of annoyingly small carrots which don't keep as well and which require a lot more prep work per pound of food. And I did separate them so that I can use them first but I foresee many afternoons in which "I am just not in the mood to deal with tiny carrots". I must remember that I don't like small carrots next year when "I just don't feel like thinning the plants".

Henry wasn't enjoying our time in the backyard. He spent a bit of time helping me with the carrots and then enjoying the sandbox but mostly he just kept saying "no carrots", "no outside", and "open door". But he did enjoy the other activities we fit in on this nice day.

We went to the playground, played with some big sticks, and did some hiking too. Henry always points to paths through trees he'd like to investigate and says "hike". I hope he keeps doing this for the rest of his life.

Final Carrot Harvest

December 2nd and I finally dug up all the carrots. We still haven't had a proper snow but I know it could come any day now making it less enjoyable to pop out before dinner to pick carrots. Luckily today was a really nice day and I stayed warm in just a sweater.
It turned out to be a very good carrot harvest. We've been eating them regularly since July (for almost 5 months already!) and we still had loads left over. It took me most of the afternoon to dig them up then brush off the excess dirt and snip off the stems.


Some of the carrots turned out to be huge. I weighed all the huge ones and several were around the 15 oz mark with the biggest being almost a pound at 15.6 oz. However, that's nothing compared to the world's largest carrot which was 18.985 pounds grown by John Evans in Alaska.

Last year's carrots

I dug up last year's carrots. I didn't plant them till late in the season last year as I was just figuring stuff out all last year. So when I tried digging them up at the end of the season last year they were still skinnier than pencils so I didn't bother. Well they're slightly bigger now but not much. They tasted alright - kind of just like bad carrots. I will make sure to get my carrots in early this year and hopefully get an actual yield.
Yes that is the entire harvest. I think I remember there was some confusion about which were carrots and which were weeds at some point.