Winter Carrot Harvest

Crops farmer Anne-Laure White explains how our carrot crops are planned and executed to bring us delicious carrot harvests through the winter.
These carrots were planted in July, and their varieties are excellent for eating fresh and setting aside for cold storage. Our fresh-eating standard bearer is Mokum, which the Crops team started harvesting in the fall. Bolero, a popular variety for Northeast growers, is not only great for fresh eating, but has also set our standard as a storage carrot, because it gets extra sweet and crispy in cold storage. In general, cold weather improves the flavor of carrots as they convert starch to sugars to keep the water in their cells from freezing. When the farmers harvest the carrots, they leave about a fifth of the crop in the field for ongoing flavor evaluations throughout the season with our partners in the Blue Hill kitchen.