There's something magical about pulling baby carrots out of a raised bed in the middle of December. In late August, I planted a second crop of carrots and baby greens in two raised beds, crossing my fingers that we'd get at least a few salads out of the mix.
As it turned out, the lettuce was so prolific that we finally polished it off during the first few days of December. The Burpees purple carrots, on the other hand, didn't fare quite so well and in fact, I'd almost given up on them. But this morning, I discovered the reddish purple carrots in the west-facing bed that gets lots of sun were actually still growing. The largest one was about the size of my pinky, almost coreless, mild and sweet.
Unfortunately, those in the backyard bed were not so great. Not even edible. Basically, what at first I mistook for teeny nantes half-long carrots were still struggling roots. But I'm eager to see if both varieties continue to grow in the next few weeks.
In late October, knowing the plants would need some extra protection, I attempted to DIY my first-ever hoop houses. I bought the materials at my all-time favorite local hardware -- Family Hardware. Using 1/2-inch PVC pipe and dowel rods cut to about 10 inches, I created hoops over the beds. I covered the hoops with sturdy plastic, and anchored them by stapling to the wood frames.
A few days later, I discovered my first mistake. Ohio weather, notoriously unpredictable, thought it was March and the wind kicked up about 40 notches. The plastic blew out of position, so I anchored it with heavy flagstone and bricks. It held until the next windstorm. After several rounds of repositioning and re-anchoring the plastic due to successive windstorms, I finally gave up on Dec. 2. I pulled the last of the lettuce and attempted to remove the plastic. Except the buckets of water from the last rain had frozen in tiny ponds on the plastic, so it stayed at the edge of the beds until the ice thawed.
Now the lettuce is gone and every few days I check the carrots. While the rest of Ohio dreams of snow on Christmas, I'm dreaming of eating tiny sweet carrots that day!
