Processing Carrots

We had a really nice carrot harvest this year,
about 80 pounds.
Our original plan was to store the carrots in the ground, with a thick cover of straw and dig them up as needed.
However.
A friendly little gopher changed our plans.

When we got back from vacation the first of July we found several new gopher mounds around the carrot patch and one smack in the middle of it.
While I appreciate that even little rodents need to eat, I’d not too keen on sharing my hard earned food with them.
They can eat sage brush.

Our carrots were quickly harvested the next day, and the tops cut off to prevent the carrots from going soft. 

There are several ways to preserve carrots through the winter.  They are one of the easier vegetable to store. As I mentioned before, they can stay in the ground, with a thick cover of straw or other bedding to prevent freezing.  They can be stored in a root cellar, either buried in damp sand or peat moss.  They can be stored in a cool refrigerator.  They can be dried or canned.

Since my first pick, storing them in the ground, was derailed by pesky gophers I picked drying and canning, I don’t have refrigerator space and didn’t want to deal with barrels and buckets of sand in my cold storage (which really doesn’t keep a very cold temp anyway).

Drying was  the simplest method.
I sliced those pretty Orange carrots in the food processor and laid them out in my dehydrator.
It took about a day for them to become crispy dry. 

They are stored in mason jars in the pantry.
They will be added to soups and stews this winter. 

Most of the carrots were canned.
Canning carrots are very easy
(as long as you aren’t scared of using a pressure canner like I was for so many years!)
The girls scrubbed the carrots very well and I sliced them into chunks.
We then raw packed them into pint jars, added water (no salt) and processed at 12 pounds pressure for 25 minutes. 

Some of the smaller carrots I saved and canned them whole in the jars.
I thought it looked cute,
everyone needs a little cuteness in life. 

So there you have it.
Carrots, stored away for winter.
And if I was really on the ball, I would have planted more and would have more to harvest, or over winter later this fall.
But I didn’t,
maybe next year?