Today must be carrot day

I pulled my carrots this morning -- partially because I've lost patience with them, and partially because they're shading my jalapenos.

It's a good thing this one is labeled, because I'd never have known what it is (it's a Nantes, by the way):



yes, there's a hole in that marker, but good heavens, how in the world I managed THAT is beyond me.

Ok - since it's carrot day I think I'll check mine this morning too. I really didn't know when to check them. Something to look forward to. BTW, very nice carrot - even grown through a marker.

To check my carrots, I push aside some of the soil at the base of the plant and you can feel and even see the shoulders. You can tell its size by that.
You can always pull them small. They taste sweeter.
I havested Nantes and Mokum the day before yesterday. Both varieties very tasty.
Yours may be growing thru a label, but I'll bet it tastes good.

I had about 2 cups of carrots, so I peeled them and steamed them with the cup or so of green beans.

Verdict from the 11-year-old? Mom, these beans and carrots ROCK. That's with no butter, no salt -- just steamed til crisp-tender and poured onto the plate.

I am with you. Especially beans from the garden are so tender compared to frozen or canned. A different animal altogether. Same for carrots. A few times I have done the same and added some fresh basil. Yum.

I just pulled my first two carrots, since it is Carrot Day. Beautiful!!!

(Can carrot greens be eaten?)

WOW how cool is that! It looks like to me the carrots are strange and unusual this year!

Here's mine. These are baby... they are supposed to get a lot bigger at maturity. We just finished a dinner including steamed carrots and green beans straight from the garden (thanks for that suggestion!!) and oh my gosh they were good!

I can tell you Megan that my carrots varied in size, and there were some good ones, but my greens never looked that good!

They are trying to put up more, too! (This is why I am wondering if they can be eaten.... they look SO yummy.)

Great picture LaFee! My carrots are still in, I have purple hazes and Nantes planted, but they just didn't grow... I put 'em in back in march, so it should be about time. Maybe I'll pull some later today...

Megan wrote:I just pulled my first two carrots, since it is Carrot Day. Beautiful!!!

(Can carrot greens be eaten?)

Yes, they can be. I've never tried them raw, but I've cooked them in a carrot top soup I found in a magazine.

I'm not at home so I don't have the exact recipe (I rarely follow exact recipes on soup, anyway), but it's basically chop and saute the carrot tops (I learned to chop and saute the stems and then the softer, leafy parts after stems are tender), add coarse chopped potatoes, then carrots, onions, garlic (and whatever other veggies in whatever order you need for them to get tender by the end - swiss chard goes really well and I add it near the end). The recipe called for lots of butter, I use less than it says - just enough to get the job done and I also use some olive oil in place of some of the butter.

Then add chicken broth (or a veggie broth, mushroom broth, etc) to get the volume you want for however much veggies you have, salt and pepper, herbs to taste - basil and lemon thyme are really good in this. I also add some chicken (cooked) to make this a complete meal, but it certainly is delicious without it.

I'm still waiting for my carrots, which I seeded in mid-April. (I think they are Danvers Half-longs).

But YES you can eat the greens!

All this talk of carrots... I just could not wait any longer!

On April 30th I planted two types of carrots:

Nantes 2 and Amsterdam 3 Sprint. The latter are supposed to be good for early baby carrots but I decided to let them grow longer.

I pulled up three carrots today - the longest one is the Amsterdam Sprint, the other two are Nantes. Judging by the shape the Nantes still has some growing to do but they should grow for another three weeks at least.



Guess I can't grumble at that, can I?

I had my daughters do a compare-and-contrast and one preferred the Nantes and one preferred the other

I shared my raw carrots with my Dau-in-law the other day and she pronounced them delicious. She's not keen on carrots, but she likes them fresh from the garden. They make a difference.
I'm going to sow more carrot seeds in the A-frame for a fall crop.