Carrots are root vegetables, of course, wholesome, tasty and easy to care for. Many grow it, in most cases successfully. However, getting a good harvest is half the battle. It is equally important to keep it. In this case, you first need to know about when they dig up carrots. If you do this too early or, conversely, too late, it will not be kept fresh and juicy for a long enough time.
In the first case,
this root crop may wrinkle and lose taste, in the second - freeze in the ground and subsequently begin to rot.
Optimal time for harvesting root crops
So when do they dig carrots? Experienced gardeners advise starting work on harvesting root crops as late as possible, but before steady night frosts. For the middle band, this is about the end of September. Most sugar and vitamins accumulate in carrots at a time when sunny weather is outside during the day and it is already cool at night. Thus, if you don’t rush too hard, you can get fully ripened, tasty root crops.
Usually the question of when they dig up carrots arises in front of summer residents immediately after they notice a few dead leafs of tops. This is really one of the signs of ripening of root crops. The most important thing is to prevent the carrots from remaining in the ground until the night when the temperature starts to drop to minus 3 degrees.
Additionally, it is worth mentioning when to dig the carrots of early ripe and medium late varieties is best. In the first case, root crops begin to be pulled out already in mid-July. In this case, the largest are selected, and the pits are sprinkled with earth. In this way, the remaining plants can be protected from infection by the root fly. If the plot is small, it’s worth digging up all the carrots and planting some fast-ripening crop in its place. Mid-late varieties are harvested in late August and early September. For storage, they, like the early ripe ones, are completely unsuitable.
How to dig carrots?
So, when they dig up carrots, we found out. Next, consider the question of how to do it right. First of all, you need to know that harvesting is best done with a shovel. With its help, a lump of land is carefully removed along with root crops, and then they are pulled out one at a time from the tops. Next, the carrots are laid out along the rows. So you need to hold it for a while. In this case, the tops will give root vegetables all the nutrients. Yes, and carrots will be stored much better. The tops should be unscrewed or trimmed, leaving a small tail.
How to keep the grown crop?
In some sources, you can read information that carrots are best stacked in boxes or open plastic bags, pouring rows of moistened sand. This method is good enough, but only in relation to the storage of not too large crops. If there are a lot of carrots, it is best to stack it in rows in a large pile and cover with polyethylene on top, in which to make holes for ventilation.
We hope that we have answered quite fully the question of when to harvest carrots. The most important thing is to wait for its full ripening and have time to dig up the root crops before serious frosts.