Tuesday 6 September 2016

More Finger Carrots

The other day I wrote about harvesting the first of my Finger Carrots, aka Cocktail Carrots, from one of the two black plastic tubs held in my tall wooden planter. I harvested those ones a few at a time, but as I said at the time, that wasn't easy due to the denseness of the Norfolk loam growing medium, so with the second tub I decided I'd do them all at once.


I laid out my trusty old groundsheet, positioned the plastic tub of carrots on it, and tipped it over, just as I do when harvesting container-grown potatoes.


Ready to start...



You can see how dense the loam is.


I was really pleased with the result. Lots of lovely clean carrots, with no damage at all, and so easy to gather because the soil was dry and crumbly.



Despite being in gardening terms "very clean", the carrots do at this stage have lots of little tiny roots attached, so they need a good wash.



But they scrub up nicely! I weighed them after washing - 702g.



I'm very pleased with the quality of this batch. They are significantly better than the first lot, though I have no idea why. For my next photo I have put some of the biggest ones on the top. I forgot to mention that the variety is "Amsterdam Forcing 3".




In all that lot there was only one bent one and one "joker". That's what I call a good result.




Ordinarily, Cocktail Carrots like these would be used raw as a pre-dinner nibble, but with such a good quantity available I think I can justify cooking some of them. How does this sound? Roast Pork (with crackling of course), Pink Fir Apple potatoes, Runner Beans and baby carrots.

7 comments:

  1. Ummm...when should I come round for dinner? Jokes aside, those carrots look great, and with your cooler weather this year, I'm sure they are very tasty too.

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  2. That has worked so well. What did you do with some carrots harvested at once? Sarah x

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    1. They keep very well, so we will have no problem using them - in fact half of them have disappeared already!

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  3. Brilliant. I've taken to pot grown carrots as well and am getting good results. What size container did you use, that's a splendid crop?

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    1. This comment has been removed by the author.

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    2. This post from 2104 shows in detail the containers and method used: http://marksvegplot.blogspot.co.uk/2014/03/carrots-protective-measures-in-smaller.html I wonder is if is anything like yours?

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  4. They look so good, Mark, mine have been a dismal failure. Just sown some more, so fingers crossed.

































    They look so good Mark, mine were a dismal failure, just sown some more so fingers crossed.



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