How to store carrots at home?

Hardly anyone will doubt the benefits of carrots. This delicious and healthy vegetable is used for cooking almost every day. It is difficult to make the first or second course without it. Carrots are an excellent addition to salads, they serve as one of the main components of vegetable stews, they are used for juicing and baking. At the same time, many city dwellers, who do not have spacious cool cellars, do not know where and how best to keep this vitamin vegetable so that it retains all its nutritional components.

Having grown a good harvest of carrots at their summer cottage, many are trying to preserve it until next year at home. It is important to understand that not only the storage location matters, but also the timing of the harvest, under what conditions. In addition, you should be aware that not all varieties will be well preserved even when optimal conditions are created for them.

For storage in urban apartments, specimens with a cone-shaped shape, up to 20 cm long, are suitable.Carrots over 20 cm in the shape of a cylinder should be eaten immediately, and not chosen for long-term storage, since the root crops will soon begin to deteriorate. It is recommended to choose the varieties "Red Giant", "Queen of Autumn", "Shantane", "Moscow Winter" and others as the most suitable options. It is advisable to separate carrots of different sizes and weights - this applies to both vegetables taken from the garden and purchased in the store.

Harvest before the first frost. For the middle lane, this period usually occurs in September. If you skip this time, the carrots can get frozen, and its fruits will change the taste, they will have a bitterness. In addition, such a crop will be much worse stored.

For harvesting, it is better to choose a dry, sunny and fine day. You should not pull out the carrot by the tops, most likely, it will remain in the ground, and only the tops will be in your hand. To pull it out, it is advisable to dig in the ground around with a pitchfork or a shovel, slightly lifting the soil, and then gently pull the vegetable by the green tops.

Having dug up the carrots, you need to cut off the tops, leaving 2-3 cm of greens. After the vegetables are scattered on the garden bed and leave them until they dry out. If the crop is harvested during the day, it is advisable to choose a drying place where the rays of the sun will not fall on it. In bad weather, the roots are transferred to a dry room or place, and left there for a couple of hours.

After harvesting, further preparation of vegetables is carried out directly for storage. Providing long-term storage of carrots will allow cutting off the heads, as well as thin tails of the vegetable, since it is they who begin to rot first. After making such a manipulation, you should wait a little more until the slices dry.

Many do not know whether it is worth washing carrots when sending them for storage or not. According to experienced gardeners, this is not worth doing. Root crops are simply cleaned from the ground without using water. It is important not to damage the peel when peeling, otherwise it will lead to rapid damage to the root crops.Having cleared the crop, the fruits are placed in a cool place for a day so that they lie down. However, even washed carrots can last a long time if you put them in the refrigerator.

The roots prepared in this way should be further sorted. It is necessary to carefully review the harvest, and separately set aside specimens with defects, cracks. And you should also select the fruits that were cut with a shovel when digging up. All selected specimens are used for processing, they are not laid for long-term storage.

Root color also plays a role. It is advisable to choose bright root vegetables, because they contain the greatest amount of useful components. It is necessary to inspect all specimens, and select options without spots or dots. Also, you should remove vegetables with green spots, as they usually taste bitter.

In order to enjoy juicy vitamin carrots in winter, you need to know in what conditions to keep them in the apartment, and how to do it correctly. If you keep the harvest at home, in a heated room, then after a few days the fruits will begin to become lethargic. The choice of a suitable place and the creation of optimal conditions will extend the shelf life of the harvested crop.

Those who live outside the city have the opportunity to store their crops directly in the garden. Such an uncomplicated earthen option will allow you to preserve root crops until May. To do this, you do not need to dig up roots, prepare them for further storage. Carrots are simply left in the beds, and in the spring they dig out copies and use them for food. To preserve the harvest until spring, you should carefully cut the tops in the fall, sprinkle the bed with sand or cover it with a film, and then sprinkle sawdust, peat or humus.

With this method of storage, all useful components will be preserved in the fruits, they will not rot or freeze. But it will not be possible to use carrots covered in this way for cooking during the winter period, because it is not recommended to open it.

Residents of multi-storey buildings cannot boast of having a basement or cellar. A suitable place to store vegetables can be:

• pantry;

• balcony;

• loggia;

• refrigerator and freezer;

• garage.

When storing the harvested crop in the refrigerator, it is recommended to wash the roots well with a sponge or stiff brush. Then leave the vegetables to dry. After that, from each root crop, you need to cut off the ends on both sides, and wait until the slices dry.

Next, the prepared root vegetables are laid out in plastic bags, air is released from them and tied. For greater reliability, you can take another package by putting them on over the first. Vegetables prepared in this way are placed in a container and sent to the compartment at the bottom of the refrigerator. After a while, condensation will begin to form inside the bags, but soon it will disappear.

Before placing carrots in the freezer, they must be washed and dried completely. After that, it is recommended to chop the fruits, cut them in any shape, or simply grate them with a grater. For storage, choose any containers that fit the size of the pallet in the freezer, or just ordinary bags with a zip fastener.

In the prepared container, the chopped carrots are further laid out, air is released from the packages, then they are laid out neatly and compactly. Chopped root vegetables can be stored in the freezer for 6 months or more.

The harvested crop is not recommended to be kept unprocessed just in the room, otherwise after 3-4 weeks such a carrot will simply have to be thrown away. To keep root vegetables at room temperature, it is recommended to coat them with a chalk or clay solution.

To prepare the required product, you need to take the clay and dilute it with water, bringing it to a creamy consistency. After cooking, you should alternately lower the vegetables into the mass, spread them out to dry, and then put them in any dark place, for example, under the bed.

In addition, a 30% chalk solution is used to spray the carrots. When processing 10 kg of root crops, add 100 ml of a chalk solution. After that, the entire crop is dried and laid out in boxes. Then the vegetables are sprinkled with sand, and the container is sent to a cool place for further storage.

A loggia or balcony can be a suitable place to ensure the safety of the harvested crop. At the same time, you can keep root crops both on an uninsulated and on an insulated balcony.

The chosen space is the best alternative to the cellar. To keep your vegetables better, it is important to create optimal conditions for them. One of the important parameters is maintaining the required temperature. It should not be higher than +2 degrees.

Keeping roots fresh will allow their content in sawdust, as well as sand or clay solution.

If vegetables will be on an uninsulated balcony, they must be covered, protecting them from the sun or dust, and also protected from birds who want to eat them. This will allow you to keep the harvested vegetables there almost until the onset of severe cold weather, after which the harvest is transferred to the room.

But if the balcony or loggia is glazed, vegetables can be stored here even in frosty weather.

Usually, the air temperature in the closet is lower than in the living quarters, since the sun practically does not look there, and any light rarely gets in. Thanks to this, the crop will be stored here better than in the room.

If there are shelves, burlap is spread on them, and vegetables are poured. To preserve the crop, it is recommended to process it with clay, or use a chalk solution.

Instead of shelves, you can also use boxes that are vertically arranged and sprinkled with sand. This will ensure the required level of humidity and ventilation.

In addition to these methods and storage places, canning vegetables will help preserve the harvest. You can make a spicy or spicy appetizer from carrots, marinate it, make it in tomato sauce or vegetable oil. Some vegetables can be used to make sauces or vegetable juices.

Many housewives, even following all the recommendations, are faced with various storage problems, since the crop still begins to deteriorate.

• Freezing of the crop. If vegetables are on an open balcony, then a sharp change in temperature can lead to freezing of individual specimens. With a slight decrease in temperatures to 2-3 degrees of frost, the roots should be insulated with old blankets and felt. In severe frosts, the boxes are brought into the room, where they are located until the weather is suitable. It is not recommended to keep them warm for a long time so that the vegetables do not overheat.

• Germination. This may be due to the growth point left on the head. When sprouting, carrots must be pruned again.

• Mold growth. Regular inspection of the crop reduces the likelihood of mold, but if this happens, it is necessary to remove the rotten specimens, and fill the rest of the root crops with a mixture of wood ash and sand.In the event that the vegetables began to rot en masse, you should sort them out, wash and remove places with defects. Next, the carrots are grated, folded into a bag and sent to the freezer for further storage.

• The appearance of wilted root crops. This can happen due to insufficient humidity in the room. To avoid this, it is recommended to cover the container with a thick cloth. In addition, wrapping root crops with cling film or arranging buckets of water will help solve this problem.