Grow Your Own Carrots

Lesson 5: Harvesting Main Crop Carrots

Heavy Lifting
Main crop carrots can be ready for lifting from as early as 10 weeks after sowing. But, depending on variety and growing conditions, they can also take as long as 16 weeks. Pulling main crop carrots is often a little more difficult than harvesting early varieties. They're bigger, they've been in the ground longer and the earth is harder. One tip is to water your crop the evening before you intend to harvest it. Another is to use a border fork to loosen the soil around the carrots before lifting. Remember to harvest in the evening to lessen the likelihood of a carrot fly attack. See Lessons 3 and 4 for more on deterring carrot flies.

Last Chance
Now is your last chance to get some main crop carrot seeds into the ground for use in October. Raising and harvesting summer crops is lots of fun but enjoying home-grown veggies as the first chilly days of autumn arrive has an appeal all of its own. There'll be more on late-cropping carrots in Lesson 6.

Comfy Crowns
If your main crop carrots are in the ground and still have a few weeks to go before they're ready to be lifted, take some time out to check their crowns. Are they sticking out of the ground? If they are, you may be exposing your crop to a fairly common carrot disorder, green top. Green top is caused by the action of sunlight on exposed carrot crowns. Green carrots – unlike green potatoes – aren't bad for you but they don't look very nice. You can easily avoid green top by earthing-up over the exposed crowns. Safe under their blanket of soil, they'll be a perfect orange when you come to harvest them. Enjoy!

Pic: GAP Photos/FhF Greenmedia