Try as I might, carrots are not usually a great crop in my garden. They often don’t produce well, or they are small, and sometimes they just don't turn out very tasty. But a few years ago my carrot harvest turned out beautifully! The carrots grew tall and sweet, and I had a bumper crop on my hands.

Often I try to plant different varieties and this year all of them did wonderfully and now I have a big crop of beautiful multicolored carrots that were not only beautiful but delicious?!  Because I haven't had to put up a lot of carrots in the past, I was faced with not only a blessing but also a problem on my hands.  How can I store these carrots fresh for a longer period of time?

My Options

I didn’t want to can all of them. That works well for adding carrots to soup, but I had way more carrots than I needed for future soups!  Unfortunately, I didn’t have time to dehydrate them, besides, I really wanted fresh carrots.

In some locations, you can overwinter carrots in the garden and just dig them up when you need them.  But that wasn’t going to work for me. So I searched the internet. 

Fresh, in the Fridge

I found an article that told about a short-term preservation process that seemed to fit the bill for me!  I was thrilled!  It was simple and quick—just what I needed!  It wasn’t long-term storage but it would work for what I needed!

I got out all of my larger plastic containers with lids. I harvested my carrots, trimmed the tops, and washed them. From there I placed the carrots in the containers, filled up the containers with cold water, placed the lids on the containers, and put them inside my refrigerator. 

That was it!

I needed to change out the water about once a week. Then back into the fridge! We were able to eat fresh carrots for several months this way. They stayed crisp and hard and we enjoyed fresh carrots full of goodness and high nutrition whenever we wanted!