You ’ve harvested the last of your squash vine , noggin , and tomatoes . And now you are thinking about your morecold hardy crops . You may have see that you could stack away carrots in the ground over winter – and perhaps you could use some arrow on how best to do this .

While keeping them in the garden is n’t the only agency to store this crop , it is a useful method for those of us with cold winter who are depleted on cool - store space . And if you ’ve espouse ourguide to uprise Daucus carota sativa , you ’ll more than likely have a bumper harvest by now !

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A close up picture of a brown plastic basket full of harvested bright orange carrots with their green foliage removed.

After all , ideal storagefor your carrot harvestinvolves cover them with Amandine Aurore Lucie Dupin and storing them at 32 to 40 ° F with a proportional humidity of 90 to 95 percentage .

If these recommend conditions go an dreadful lot like what ’s go on in your garden soil during the winter , it may make honest sense for you to leave this root vegetable in the ground until you want it .

In this article , we ’ll get to the antecedent of salt away carrots in this way of life . Here ’s what we ’ll overlay :

A close up of harvested carrots with the foliage removed and only an inch of stem still attached. Fading to soft focus in the background. To the center and bottom of the frame is green and white text.

What You’ll Learn

This Method Is Not for You If…

In some cases , storing this ascendent vegetable in the garden through the wintertime may not be advisable . I ’ll save up you some clip by going over those cases first .

You may require to glean your carrot instead of leaving them in the garden if :

If storing this vegetable in the ground turns out not to be the skilful method acting for your situation , harvest your Daucus carota sativa and keep them in your fridge , a root basement , or a cool basement . And do n’t forget these other things todo in the garden before winter .

A close up of harvested carrots with the foliage removed and only an inch of stem still attached. Fading to soft focus in the background. To the center and bottom of the frame is green and white text.

On the other helping hand , if go forth them where they are sound perfect , there are a few steps you ’ll want to take to store them successfully .

But before you get started , you ’ll need to recognise the best time to store your carrots for winter .

When to Put Your Crop to Bed

It will be fourth dimension to get busy make your crop after you have had a couple of frosts – which will make your carrot sweeter – but before the soil suspend .

How do you know when your ground is frozen ?

allot to theWestern Regional Climate Center , when air temperatures reach 24 ° F or lower , the ground begins to freeze .

A small stone building with a wooden roof set into the ground, with stone retaining walls on either side leading to the entrance door. This root cellar has a dark wood door, surrounded by grass and vegetation in bright sunshine. The background is a pine forest.

Whether the soil stays icy and how deeply it freeze down will depend on many divisor , let in “ the length and severeness of the frost , territory wet , and soil case . ”

So do n’t await for a hard freeze , keep your eye on the conditions composition , and be quick to start preparing your carrots after a couple of wakeful frost .

To learn more about how vary point of cold will affect your plants , read our clause on rime damage .

A vertical picture of freshly harvested carrots with soil still on the roots and the green foliage attached. A piece of string is tied lightly round the stems. The background is a wooden surface in soft focus.

Mark Your Crop

Your light-colored frost have come and gone , and now you ’re ready to put your carrots to bed . And for that , they ’ll need covering . But before you begin covering them up , there ’s an authoritative gradation to take so that you’re able to find exactly where they are when you are quick to reap them .

You will be treat them with mulch , so ensure you have a way of happen them again first . Mark your carrot speckle with a sign , stick , or some other means to remind yourself that there is a crop of root vegetables there for later eating .

In my garden , I apply sticks for this purpose .

A garden in fall sunshine with a light frost on the ground. In the background are two pale green wooden sheds, surrounded by vegetation. In the foreground is a lawn with fallen leaves.

If you get muckle of Baron Snow of Leicester in your region , ensure your marking is tall enough to outdo than your expected snowfall , in case you want to dig some of your carrots up before the snow melts .

Lop the Tops Off

After marking your bed , the next step is to shorten off the greens . There are a couple of reasons why you should do this :

First , when carrot greens are left on , they keep to depict up energy from the roots . This lead in veggie that are not as sweet as they would have been otherwise .

And because you are covering them ,   in more humid climates , your buried carrot park will belike waste – deflower your craw .

A vertical image of a garden spade resting against a wooden post and rail fence, on frosty grass in light winter sunshine.

When you cut the greenish tops back , bequeath about 1/4 to 1/2 column inch of green fore intact .

Cover Your Roots

Now that you have mark your bed and trim off your greens , you are ready to hide your carrots .

There are differentmaterials you’re able to choose from to practice as an insulate mulchfor your craw : shuck , hay , or leaves . apply the textile that is most approachable to you , as you ’ll call for quite a lot of it .

Compost , barque , woodchips , and other cosmetic mulches   are not suitable , as the cover that we are going for here is intended to insulate , not to preserve moisture .

Rows of carrot tops growing in the garden, surrounded by straw mulch. The bright green of the foliage contrasts with the straw on the ground around them.

Make indisputable your mulch is ironical , as a soggy mulch can ensue in a mouldy crop .

If you wish , you may add a layer of dirt over the cultivated carrot crowns before mulching to help insulate them .

Cover your carrots with a 12 - in - heavyset layer of your preferred mulch , making sure to cover the ground out to a border of at least 12 - 18 inches either side of each plant .

Three white plastic garden signs on a rustic woven fabric, on a wooden surface.

Some gardeners put a row cover version – or even an old bed sheet – over the top of the mulch stratum to keep it from blowing away in windy field .

If you live in a clime where snow covers the ground for most or all of the wintertime , a blanket of snow can also provide extra insularism for your carrot bed .

Can It Be Too Cold For Ground Storage?

Most extension situation urge harvesting carrots from the groundbeforethe grunge freezes .

So does that entail if you experience somewhere where the soil freezes in wintertime that you may not store these root vegetable in the garden ? Not necessarily .

Many gardeners , includingJim Hole at the Edmonton Journal , take that well - mulched carrot patches can stand even sub - zero airwave temperatures .

A close up of green carrot tops growing in the garden, rich earthy soil surrounding, and in between them.

This has also been my personal experience inUSDA Hardiness Zone 5a . Last year , some of myunmulchedcarrots survived air temperatures at least as low as -16 ° F . These were protected by only a layer of Charles Percy Snow .

For those of us with mean winterairtemperatures below 24 ° atomic number 9 – the idealsoiltemperature for storage of 32 - 40 ° F – keeping these root vegetables in the soil is certainly deserving a attempt when they are mulch and protected with a blanket of snow , even in climates where the terra firma is frozen throughout winter .

Underground , the temperature of the soil will always be slightly high than the ambient air and footing temperature .

A hand from the right of the image holding the green top of a carrot and gently pulling it out of the soil. The background is dark soil in light sunshine.

When to Harvest

If your carrot bed are well mulched , the soil in these bottom should not be as frigid as the hem in soil , and you may harvest the roots throughout the winter , as needed .

Unless you are overwinteringyour craw for cum production(a process known as vernalization ) , you ’ll require to harvest your carrots before spring , when they ’ll start growing again

Once spring beginning , the carrots will summarize sending energy into the greens , which will develop back . vigor spent on carrot tops mean less energy saved in the roots , which will result in a passing of sweetness , and a woody and toughened texture .

A close up of rows in a vegetable garden, covered with a layer of straw mulch for winter. In between the rows is bare, frosty soil.

Leaf Them in the Ground

Now that your carrots are put to bed for the wintertime , their beds well cross off , their greens absent , and their roots resting sweetly under a thick isolate mulch , it ’s clip to loop up , do some wintertime garden planning , and dream of next year’scarrot varieties .

For more guidance on harvesting and storing root vegetables , check out these articles next :

© Ask the Experts , LLC . ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.See our TOSfor more details . Originally published November 24th , 2019 . Last updated August 14th , 2023 . Uncredited photograph : Shutterstock . extra authorship and editing by Clare Groom and Allison Sidhu .

A close up of a carrot top poking through a snowy cover. The snow covers the ground around it and in the background, with a little soil visible in between the rows.

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Kristina Hicks - Hamblin

A winter scene in the garden. Snow covers the roof of a greenhouse, a raised garden bed and the ground surrounding. The background is trees and a fence all white with snowfall.