I have a confession. I have not exactly been on top of putting up food this fall. I think that after a busy CSA season, I just needed a break. (If you don't know about our CSA venture, you can visit the blog here, although it has not been updated in a while.) Which means, we still have carrots, beets, cabbages and onions in the garden, and they probably should have been put up in storage about a month ago. Luckily, they are all (mostly) fine. However, the nights are getting cold here in the San Luis Valley, with lows regularly in the teens, and so is the ground, which means everything needs to be harvested and put up now.
First up, carrots. We love carrots. Love them. And having our own sweet, crunchy carrots from the garden all winter long...well, that's certainly worth the work to store them.
Aaron dug up the carrots in chunks of soil (entangled with a few wild sunflower roots) and I went through and pulled the carrots loosed. Then they went in a crate, to be taken out of the crate again by River. Mason kept us safe from giant sunflower stalks.
Once the carrots were harvested we took them to the back yard to prep them and pack them for storage in the root cellar. We trimmed the tops and separated them into three piles: storage, broken ones to go in the fridge, and little baby ones for the little ones to snack on.
Once we had a crate full of carrots to store, Mason began the process of putting alternating layers of sawdust and carrots in a big metal trash can. He loved this process.
Our crazy goat Buttercup jumped the fence and wandered in to see if she could get her teeth on some yummy carrots. Mason defended his carrots.
Crazy goat.
Of course, River did her part to help out, mostly by snatching and taking bites out of as many carrots as possible.
At the end of the day, we had a trash can full of carrots tucked away for the winter, and fridge full as well. Next up, bring on the beets!
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