Winter’s Healthy Harvest

epending on where you live, you may be able to harvest produce from your garden throughout the winter months. Even in colder climates, you can do this in a greenhouse. In Arizona, I harvest herbs, radishes, and spinach and other greens all winter long—crops discussed in previous sections. I also harvest carrots during our cold season; more about that in a moment.

But as I’ve already shared in this section, even if you reside in a location impacted by hard frosts and persistently freezing temperatures, winter can still be a time to enjoy the fruits of your labor. If you pull up potatoes in the fall and store them properly, they will be in good condition for months. What’s more, winter is the time to plant these tubers.

Carrots

There’s nothing quite as satisfying as heading into the garden, grabbing a handful of feathery greens, and tugging out a vivid orange root. But carrots, Daucus carota, need not be orange. Cultivated carrots were originally either white or purple. Selection and hybridization in the early to mid1900s brought us the vitamin-packed orange carrot we know today.

I’m glad that carrot colors are becoming diverse again. Now, in both markets and seed catalogs, you can find not only orange carrots, but also red, yellow, white, and purple varieties. The pigments in orange, red, and purple varieties are particularly good for us. Research continues to point to the value of these antioxidant carotenoids and anthocyanins, making it wise to “eat the rainbow.”

Carrots, along with other root vegetables, have rather unique soil requirements, and so may require their own garden bed. They prefer a sandy, loose loam that isn’t too high in nitrogen. Nitrogen propels green growth; too much of it in your soil will give you carrots with huge tops and spindly roots. Clumpy clay and rocks should be removed to prevent crooked and deformed roots.

You won’t find carrot seedlings at your local nursery, because transplanting can also cause deformation of the root, often referred to as forking. Carrots must be grown from seed. Sow in rows about six inches apart. It is essential to keep the seeds moist for up to two weeks to ensure that they germinate. I sprinkle peat moss over the seeds to help them retain moisture. In the Arizona sun, this is essential. Because the seeds are very tiny, it’s hard to avoid sowing way too many, and thinning the seedlings is a lot of work. They need to be spaced two inches apart to allow roots to develop. Most seed companies sell “pelleted” carrot seeds that have a thick coating, making it easy to space them properly.

If you grow carrots in the spring and early summer, be sure to harvest them before the temperatures climb too high. As with kale, they taste much better in the fall after a couple of frosts. Following the first hard frost in the fall, consider covering your carrot rows with a layer of shredded leaves; you may be able to preserve them for a winter harvest.

If you can’t harvest carrots into the winter in your climate, treat them as a storage crop. Harvest them before the first hard freeze. Cut off the greens, leaving just a half-inch remaining above the carrot’s shoulder, and store them in perforated bags or packed in damp sand in sealed containers at a temperature just above freezing with high humidity. In optimal conditions, certain varieties will last in storage for up to six months.

While pests aren’t much of a problem for me in Arizona, in most parts of the country, gardeners should be aware of the carrot fly, Psila rosae, which likes to lay its eggs on young carrots so the larvae can feed. The adult fly is attracted to the smell of carrots, so one way to keep them away is to sow your carrot seeds carefully, placing one seed every three inches. That way, you don’t need to thin them and release odor that invites an invasion. Garlic has also traditionally been planted with carrots to mask the telltale scent. Perhaps the most effective means of controlling carrot-fly infestations is via floating row covers; the lightweight mesh will keep the flies out and give the carrot tops room to grow.

As I’m sure you know, carrots are great for eye health. Their content of beta-carotene slows the progression of macular degeneration and helps prevent cataracts. There is more vitamin A (beta-carotene is a precursor to this vitamin) in carrots than almost any other vegetable, and they also contain high levels of fiber, biotin, vitamin K, vitamin B6, vitamin C, thiamin, and potassium.

Potatoes

The potato, Solanum tuberosum, is grown for its tubers. The leaves and stem contain a natural toxin called solanine and should not be eaten. If exposed to light, potatoes themselves can turn green, indicating the presence of solanine. In this case, it’s best to peel them to remove any green tissue along with any sprouts.

Greening, aka chitting, potatoes is the process by which you can get your potato “seeds” off to an early start and can shorten the time to harvest by up to two weeks. It isn’t, however, necessary for main season (summer) plantings. You’ve undoubtedly accidentally greened potatoes by leaving them out on the counter too long. To properly and purposefully green your potatoes, place them in a single layer on a tray with the eyes facing up—the eyes are where new shoots will emerge. The tray can then be set out in a cool, frost-free area in the light, out of direct sun. Greening your potatoes should begin early in the year depending on your climate zone. Give them a couple months before the last frost date to green (late January in mild climates and late February in colder areas). They can then be planted, before the last frost is expected, so that the first shoots emerge into a frost-free spring. Potatoes can be planted, greened or not, throughout the spring. If you have limited space, they are also suitable for container gardening.

An open, sunny spot is the best place to plant your potatoes. Give them plenty of room to grow, about a foot between each planting, as the plants grow rather large. Loosen the ground and plant the potatoes about four inches deep. They prefer soils on the acidic side, so do not add lime. No fertilizers or manures should be added directly to prevent scabbing and blight. After you’ve planted, you can draw up more soil to form a low mound. When the shoots are eight to 10 inches long, mound up more soil around them, leaving the uppermost three to five inches exposed. “Hilling” like this encourages tuber production. Continue to hill your potatoes until the foliage is roughly two feet across. To feed your crop, side-dress the hills with an organic fertilizer.

When the first flowers open above the lush foliage, your early potatoes are ready to harvest. If you want full-sized potatoes or are growing them for overwinter storage, leave them in the ground until their greenery begins to wither.

In subsequent years, remember this: Do not plant potatoes in the same place two years in a row to prevent blight. And if your tomato plants had blight, avoid that location for your potatoes as well, as the plants are close relatives and can be afflicted by the same fungus.

There are many potato varieties, each unique in flavor and texture. Finding a few suitable for your backyard may require some experimentation. “New” potatoes are merely immature, usually early varieties. Fingerlings are long, finger-shaped potatoes. Different varieties are suitable for different dishes, whether for boiling, frying, baking, or making salads. And certain varieties have better storage potential than others. Stored properly—in crates, vented boxes, or mesh bags, at around 40 degrees Fahrenheit with 95 percent relative humidity—many varieties will last five months or longer.

Speaking of storage, the tuber, as with all bulbs, is a food storage system for the plant. When we eat the starchy interior of the potato, we’re not actually eating the most nutritious part of the tuber. Its fibrous skin and the layer directly beneath it are packed with vitamins B6 and C, niacin, potassium, iron, magnesium, and pantothenic acid. Baking or roasting potatoes is a much healthier way of cooking them than frying. Find some of my favorite potato recipes on pages 93, 124, and 132.