Carrots

sifting compost for carrots ©Janet Allen
Filling our carrot box with sifted compost

Years ago, we planted carrots, but never had a very successful crop. Every time the roots encountered a stone—even a smallish one—the root would go off in different directions. We had lots of two-legged carrots. We then tried sifting the soil, but even that didn't work. We decided that it was just easier to buy organic carrots at the grocery store.

But in 2014, we decided to give it another try, becoming one of our "experiments of the year." We created open-bottom boxes with some of our old cedar fence slats, then sifted pure compost from OCRRA into them, and placed them on the sunny path next to the driveway.

Carrots with deer protection ©Janet Allen
Carrots with deer protection

It looks like this method is going to work.

We put some fencing on the top of the bed to thwart deer.

Our first crop ©Janet Allen
A success!

We grew two types of red carrots; both were successful, but this Cosmic Purple was better.

Why red? We based our seed selections on the book Eating on the Wild Side, which makes recommendations based on the nutritional content (as well as taste). The red carrots are a lot more nutritious, and it turns out that the original carrots (hundreds of years ago) weren't orange anyway!

Harvest record

YR LB $/lb* Savings Notes
15
14 23
14 · · · ·

* We're guessing at the price per pound of organic produce.