Carrots: How to harvest & store your carrot crop
HARVESTING AND STORING CARROTS
Early carrot
sowings should be pulled as soon as they are large enough for eating.
Late carrot sowings keep for winter storage.
Pull carrots for storage during the first half of October—no later as bad weather could damage the crop.
Roots left in the ground too long become woody and are prone to cracking, and there is not much sense in storing them.
Carrots in good condition and if properly stored can keep until March or April of the following year.
LIFTING CARROTS
Lift the carrots for storage carefully with a fork and try not to damage or bruise them as damaged roots are subject to soft rot, which attacks through the wounds and causes a slimy decay, spreading out from the centre of the carrot.
Put the damaged carrots aside to eat immediately.
PREPARING CARROTS FOR STORAGE
Cut off the leaves of the carrot tops as near to the crown as possible without damaging them.
Clean any soil off the carrot roots.
Using slightly damp sand in boxes place the carrots in layers in a frost proof shed that is well ventilated. Remove for eating as required.
Be sure that the carrots are not stored in very damp conditions as they are likely to get Sclerotinia rot – a fluffy fungus that causes them to become black and hard.
NOTE.
I heard of a very funny way of getting rid of carrot root fly the other day.
Apparently the female carrot fly is the problem. She flies along the rows of carrots at a height of about 2 inches above soil level with a territory length of one meter.
Before she is ready to lay any eggs she flies up and down her patch viciously attacking any other carrot root flies that might infiltrate her patch.
So all you need to do is use old bits of mirrors placed back to back
at one yard intervals along the rows and the female carrot root fly will
– incredibly - attack her own reflection and continue the attack
until she dies and falls to the ground. !!!!!!!!.