Carrots are the most popular crop in our winter garden with the cold temperatures turning the roots into sugar-filled ‘candy carrots’. Our winter carrots are planted in mid-summer in both garden beds and cold frames, and although ‘Napoli’ and ‘Yaya’ yield the sweetest orange carrots, the kids also like to seed a rainbow of colours including red, yellow, white, and purple.
Once the November temperatures start to nose-dive, we deep mulch the carrot beds before the ground freezes. By pre-gathering the materials – I keep bags of shredded autumn leaves beside my compost bin – winterizing our carrot beds takes just 5 quick minutes.
Related post: Corn salad is a great winter green
3 steps to winter carrots:
1 – Gather your materials. You’ll need shredded leaves or straw, a row cover or bed sheet, and a few rocks for weighing down the cover. You can also use garden staples like these, to secure the fabric. They work great, but will poke small holes in the covers. I only use staples when I have old row covers that are already well used and I don’t mind further damage.
2 – Cover your carrot bed with a 1 to 1 1/2 foot deep layer of mulch.
3 – Top the mulch with the row cover or sheet and weigh down with rocks (or logs). This will prevent the mulch from blowing away.
Bonus step – Add a bamboo stake beside the bed so that you know where to dig when the garden is covered in snow!
Do you harvest winter carrots?
When is the last date you can plant carrots and beets for a fall crop?
First week in August for me.. if you’re quick, you can try to plant some now, but pick and early maturing or baby type. Good luck! – Niki
For cold frames, do the plants grow their greens up into the foot of mulch? I’m confused as to what this looks like once they are well underway growing.
Great question! At that point, the carrots are done growing for the season and the greens will lie beneath the mulch.
I have June planted carrots that have stayed small this year that are still in in my hoop garden. Can I mulch and leave these for later harvest?
Hi Brenda!! I hope all is well in your garden 🙂 Yes, as long as the roots have sized up by late autumn you can totally cover them with mulch. I would wait until late Nov/early Dec however. Frost is not an issue and will sweeten up the roots. Just add the mulch before the ground freezes. – Niki
Hi, My son has a birthday in April ’22 (turning 5) and I live in NY. He wants a “creepy carrots birthday.” I was wondering if 12/12/2021 is too late to plant carrots if they are covered? It hasn’t been that cold here this year. Lows of 40 maybe. If this is at all possible, when would they be ready? Would April/May work? How long do carrots take to grow?
Hi Diana, yes sorry it’s too late. They would have had to be planted in early August in your region. Temperature isn’t the defining factor of success; it’s day length. The plants need more than 10 hours of light to grow and we don’t have that in the northeast. Temps above 50 F would also be important. Sorry! Niki