Hurray for Carrots!

This year I added a fantastic new crop to my vegetable plot: carrots!

I planted two varieties: summer and winter. I've been picking baby carrots for a month, and should be able to keep picking carrots right until Christmas-time. If you grow carrots, I really recommend growing both types.


My three-year-old really loves helping me to dig them up. Her favourite way to eat them is straight out of the ground. She pulls them up by the stalk, washes them off (in her paddling pool if she things I'm not looking), and eats them raw (including the stalks, "like a rabbit").

I was afraid that rabbits would eat up the carrots before we could enjoy them (we get rabbits and other wildlife in our garden), but they don't seem to have touched them. I didn't weed them too carefully, and that seems to have helped.

If you prefer your vegetables cooked, here's what I recommend. (If you don't grow your own, you can buy baby carrots at the supermarket or--even better--farmer's market.)

Simple recipe:

1. Wash the carrots (don't peel) and trim the stalks.
2. Drizzle with local honey. Finely grate orange peel over them and then squeeze out the juice into the pan.
3. Spray finely with extra virgin olive oil.
4. Bake until tender (about 1/2 hour).