Sunday, October 18, 2009

Garden Cleanup & Food Storage as the Ground Hardens

Friday night it got down to 20 degrees Fahrenheit. I still had carrots and beets in the ground, and a lot of tomatoes in the greenhouse. Fortunately, because of all the sunshine last week, the ground was warm enough that the root vegetables weren't harmed. So a lot of Saturday and Sunday was spent digging, picking, sorting, cleaning and storing the last of our summer's Alaska harvest.

Here are the carrots and beets in a wheelbarrow, after picking:
Here's the garden from the shop roof. The arugula and broccoli haven't yet suffered from the cold. They are fairly hardy:
The carrots and beets (buried) in a tub, after their foliage was removed:

I sorted the carrots by size and type, and packed them in damp sand. They're stored along the windward wall of the shop, and keep well this way until May:
Some twisted carrots I set aside:

3 comments:

EyeOnYou said...

Phil you said you packed your carrots in damp sand and they will store that way until May. Do you have to keep the sand damp or is that just how you pack them originally?

I had no idea you could keep carrots this way. I appreciate the intel. :)

Philip Munger said...

EOU,

The sand remains slightly damp. The water in the carrots balances the water in the sand. With a lid on the tub, it all remains about as damp through the winter as it was when you you started the storage. The carrots retain their fresh taste all winter long.

This only works well if the average temperature in the tub remains in the high 30s or low 40s F.

EyeOnYou said...

Awesome. Thanks!