The winter garden has been hit hard this year. First we had snow, then super cold temperatures, then it warmed up but stayed dark and now it’s cold again.
The salad tunnel is hunkered down in some sort of stasis, just waiting for sun and warm together to start growing again. The brassicas in the other tunnel got toasted with the combination of dark and cold in December. I dunno why they took it so hard, but they did. There are a few heads of struggling cabbage, but that’s it. Glad I froze as much broccoli and cauliflower as I did this summer as we have none now.
But the carrots? The carrots have been amazing. The tops are long gone, so it’s a bit like a snipe hunt to find carrots (must mark rows next winter), but once you locate a row – there’s all the carrots you could want. Once a week or so I go out with a flashlight, scrabble for carrots and wash them up to go in the fridge.
Every variety seems to be holding well in the ground, but some are more fun than others.I love the purple carrots, they make the sweetest roast carrots. A bit of butter and salt and at the end they taste candied. The thumbelinas continue to be a real treat, staying crunchy even as some get bigger than golf balls. There are also some Nantes, Chantanay and something else out there.
Nothing’s marked so it’s a bit hard to know what’s what beyond the purples and the Thumbelina’s. It doesn’t really matter as all of them are sweet and crisp and perfect.
Sorry to hear that the winter garden is struggling. One just never knows how what is expected to sustain will/won’t make it through – glad you’ve got the frozen stores! Your carrots look delicious – I agree about the purples being the great roasters.
A bit of heaven, I’d say. Lovely pic. Makes my mouth water!
What beautiful colors! They’re like little gems in the middle of the bleak winter.
Yum! My carrots were miserable this year. Pretty much everything was miserable in my garden this year, due to the flooding in the spring we had here, and then the late start, and lower temps. The rabbits didn’t help. Last year my carrots were fab, and I did the same thing. My real favorites are the parsnips at this time of year, dug fresh. Like candy! I like to mix them with the carrots for roasting.
Wow! I’ve never had a purple carrot. But now that I’ve seen your stunning photo, I am going to order some seeds and try them in next summer’s garden…