Amusing top-to-carrot ratio
Posted by Lauren on 01 Mar 2009 at 12:40 am | Tagged as: carrots, pictures
I was picking carrots for dinner and I thought “Oh the tops are all small, I’ll gather several” and then I pulled up this tiny carrot top and I got this huge lovely carrot. My six-inch santoku knife included for reference.
That IS amazing. I had no idea that was even possible. My tops are a good equal length to my roots. I wonder if it’s the variety you grew. I grew Mokum. I’ll be growing Purple Haze for fun for the kids this year as well. What did you grow?
LOL! Priceless. And it shows once again that the garden and the “growing things” never fail to amaze and surprise, even when we think we’ve got something figured out.
Sinfonian, this is from a fall planting of Merida, an overwintering variety that seems to very well in the Seattle area. Last year we grew that and Mokum. This year we have Merida, Purple Haze, Red Samurai (going all out with the fun colors!) and Nelson. All are from Territorial Seed.
I think what happened is that the root got good and established, then the late December blizzard killed off the tops and this is just the regrowth in the last six weeks or so. But it certainly was a surprise!
Ah, cool. So maybe if I harvest the fresh growth that I’m seeing, that I’ll have good sized carrots below? Interesting. I was going to dig them up anyway because they’ll just form seed stalks rather than good carrots (so I’m told).
I too am growing purple haze for my kids. So it’s Mokum and purple haze. I’ll have to hear the report from you on Red Samurai. My youngest loves red, hehe. If only there was a true yellow carrot, that would be fun.
I don’t think they’ll go to seed until later this year … I’ve never had carrots to go seed yet, and we leave them in the ground all winter and just harvest as we go.
You could always pull one up and see how it’s doing. Or, if their shoulders are sticking out or are close to the surface, you can stick one finger down around the sides and see how big around the carrot seems to be, and how long.
I have gotten yellow carrots from the grocery store, way back when I bought produce at the grocery store, but I have no idea what variety or anything.
[...] planting that survived the winter well, and some Merida overwintering carrots (but none as nice as this one). I sliced up the leek plus some farmers’ market garlic for the risotto, and while it was [...]