Late Winter Root Crop Harvest

Seeing as it is almost time to start planting my spring crops. I decided that it was time to finish harvesting last years crops from the garden.  The two things that I overwintered outside were my carrots and my parsnips.  The carrots were tucked in the middle of my pepper bed last year, and I mostly neglected them after planting.  I was more concerned about the pepper harvest at the end of fall, and I pretty much forgot the carrots were even growing there.  The parsnips were hidden among the celery crop, which died back months ago with the first of winter's frigid temperatures.  When the weather started warming up this spring, I noticed that the tops of the carrots and parsnips had started to grow again.  Now that I could easily see where they were growing, I could just dig them out where ever I saw a touch of new green growth.  I was impressed by the size of the carrots as many of them were huge!  There were a few that had split in the winter and those immediately became chicken treats when I found them.  The rest were washed and brought inside where I could further process them at my leisure.

Overwintered carrots are super sweet and tasty because the carrots store lots of sugar which acts like antifreeze to help them survive the really cold temperatures of winter.

The parsnip harvest wasn't nearly as impressive, but there were many good sized ones that had grown nice and straight in my hard clay soils.  I like this crop because it's taproot grows very deep into the soil and helps brings nutrients closer to the surface where other crops can utilize them.  It also helps to break up any compaction in the soil which can help any future crops grow by making it easier for them to spread their roots.

I will use some of these tasty roots for fresh eating, but the rest will be sliced or cubed and then dehydrated for long term food storage or backpacking meals.  This is another example of how I can grow a good amount of food with little extra work.  These crops shared garden beds with other crops that were unaffected by (or improved because of) their presence.  They were seeded in as an after thought and pretty much ignored for the rest of the growing season.  I left them in the ground outside for winter which also saves me storage space while the roots become sweeter.  In the end I wound up with several pounds of tasty fresh food that I can harvest at a time of year when there is very little growing outside yet.  A win win all around.