How to save carrots and beets for the winter

Car­rots and beets require care­ful han­dling both dur­ing har­vest­ing and stor­age. In order to pre­vent spoilage and rot­ting of the crop, it is impor­tant to prop­er­ly pre­pare the root crops and pro­vide them with opti­mal con­di­tions.

Harvest Rules

By fol­low­ing the rules for col­lect­ing car­rots and beets, you will ensure their long shelf life.

How to harvest beets

Beets must be har­vest­ed before the first frost. Depend­ing on the region, the appro­pri­ate time for har­vest­ing is ear­ly or late Octo­ber. Beet­root does not tol­er­ate low tem­per­a­tures, so har­vest­ing should not be delayed too long.

Most often, beets are har­vest­ed in sun­ny weath­er, but they must be dried in the shade. After high-qual­i­ty dry­ing, the root crop will be eas­i­er to clean from dirt. The final step is cut­ting off the roots and cut­ting the tops. Breaks must not be allowed, oth­er­wise in these places the veg­etable will begin to rot quick­ly and will not sur­vive the win­ter months.

How to harvest carrots

Car­rots, in turn, are even more exposed to rot­ting process­es. Har­vest­ing car­rots is also car­ried out before the first frost. It is impos­si­ble to tap it on the ground — oth­er­wise it will crack, and it will have to be urgent­ly eat­en.

At the same time, car­rots can be washed with warm water — beets can­not be cleaned like that. On the day of col­lec­tion, the car­rots must be washed, then dried in the fresh air and placed for 10 days in a room where appro­pri­ate con­di­tions must be pro­vid­ed — good ven­ti­la­tion, tem­per­a­ture up to 14 ° C.

If the col­lec­tion of car­rots occurs on a rainy day, then after har­vest­ing it should be spread out in a uni­form lay­er in the garage or in the house in one lay­er on the bed­ding. In this case, the lit­ter should be dry, and the veg­eta­bles should not touch each oth­er.

After the car­rots have dried, you will need:

1. Clean the root crops from dirt. In the case of clay soil and dry­ing of lumps of dirt, you can leave them.
2. Select dam­aged roots. For long-term stor­age, use only strong, whole, healthy veg­eta­bles. A dam­aged peel opens up an entrance for the pen­e­tra­tion of harm­ful microor­gan­isms, which will quick­ly lead to rot­ting of the entire crop.
3. Sort car­rots by size. Small veg­eta­bles should be used first, then medi­um ones, and then you can move on to large ones.
4. With a sharp knife, cut the tops 1–2 mm from the root crop. Some peo­ple cut the tops 1–2 weeks before har­vest, but this makes har­vest­ing car­rots more dif­fi­cult and is unlike­ly to increase the shelf life of veg­eta­bles.

Veg­eta­bles that are not suit­able for long-term stor­age due to dam­age should be used in cook­ing first.

Harvest storage rules

Prop­er stor­age of the crop will pro­vide you with tasty and healthy veg­eta­bles through­out the win­ter.

How to store beets

It is rec­om­mend­ed to store beets in the cel­lar, in the base­ment, since in such stor­ages the opti­mal con­di­tions are tem­per­a­ture up to +2 ° C, humid­i­ty up to 90%. If these con­di­tions are not pro­vid­ed, then the beets will begin to with­er, dete­ri­o­rate, and it will not sur­vive the win­ter.

The cel­lar / base­ment must be insu­lat­ed, water­proofed and pro­tect­ed from ground­wa­ter. It is also nec­es­sary to pro­vide a ven­ti­la­tion sys­tem indoors. Make sure that it does not con­tain the remains of last year’s crop — if you acci­den­tal­ly skip one rot­ten veg­etable, then it risks ruin­ing the entire crop. Dis­in­fect the premis­es with slaked lime or a sul­fur check­er.

If there is no cel­lar and base­ment, then you can store beets in the apart­ment. To do this, you can put the veg­etable in a plas­tic bag with­out tying it, and put it at the door next to the bal­cony.

You can also store beets on the bal­cony if it is glazed. For this it is enough:

1. Put the roots in a wood­en box.
2. Sprin­kle each lay­er of veg­eta­bles with shav­ings, saw­dust or sand (these mate­ri­als should not be com­bined).

The main thing is that the roots do not touch each oth­er.

You can store beets in the same bag with pota­toes, espe­cial­ly if there is not enough free space in the apart­ment, in the base­ment or in the cel­lar. Such a “neigh­bor­hood” is use­ful for both types of veg­eta­bles.

If it is enough for you to keep the beets for one month, then you can store them in the refrig­er­a­tor.

How to store carrots

For long-term stor­age of car­rots, it is nec­es­sary to pur­chase dry loamy sand, which forms a breath­able cush­ion, elim­i­nates fumes from veg­eta­bles and pre­vents the growth of harm­ful microor­gan­isms. Sand will need to be poured into the box in lay­ers, wet­ting it with water. Veg­eta­bles must not touch. The max­i­mum lay­er height is 4 cm.

There is anoth­er option for stor­ing car­rots, when saw­dust is used instead of sand. How­ev­er, in this case, they can no longer be wet­ted. Saw­dust pre­vents crop wilt­ing and the devel­op­ment of pathogens.

If the car­rots are stored in plas­tic bags in the cel­lar, it is impos­si­ble to tie the bags too tight­ly — oth­er­wise this will dis­rupt the opti­mal humid­i­ty and lead to wilt­ing of the root crops.

If the car­rots are con­stant­ly rot­ting, you can use a shell of hard clay. Dilute clay with water in a buck­et until a flu­id uni­form mass appears. After that, each root crop must be dipped in clay and dried. Make sure the clay com­plete­ly cov­ers the root crop. Move the car­rots to the cel­lar or base­ment and place them in baskets/boxes. It is not nec­es­sary to cov­er the crop with lids.

Why beets and carrots spoil

Beets and car­rots, if crop stor­age errors are made, can dete­ri­o­rate. There are sev­er­al rea­sons why veg­eta­bles begin to rot:

1. In the har­vest laid down for win­ter stor­age, there were ini­tial­ly spoiled root crops.
2. The tem­per­a­ture in the room changes dra­mat­i­cal­ly from warm to cold and vice ver­sa.
3. Indoors high humid­i­ty, exces­sive for­ma­tion of car­bon diox­ide.
4. Stor­age tech­nolo­gies have been bro­ken.

Care must be tak­en when dig­ging up root crops, as they are eas­i­ly dam­aged even with the slight­est blow. Knock­ing them on the ground, throw­ing them from place to ground, there is a risk of cracks and oth­er dam­age. They will not be vis­i­ble, how­ev­er, in the future, fun­gal dis­eases and rot­ting process­es will begin to spread from these places, which will spread to oth­er veg­eta­bles locat­ed near­by.

In the case of a sharp change in tem­per­a­ture, con­den­sa­tion will appear. With its for­ma­tion, the risk of rot­ting veg­eta­bles increas­es. For this rea­son, it is unde­sir­able to store root crops in plas­tic bags: in extreme cas­es, holes can be made at their bot­tom.

If veg­eta­bles are allowed to freeze (and it occurs when the tem­per­a­ture drops to ‑1 ° C), then this increas­es the risk of rot­ting stocks.

The shelf life of car­rots and beets decreas­es with excess and lack of mois­ture. If there is exces­sive humid­i­ty in the room, it is rec­om­mend­ed to move the veg­eta­bles to anoth­er, more suit­able room. If the humid­i­ty is insuf­fi­cient, it is nec­es­sary to pro­vide con­di­tions for humid­i­fy­ing the room. The opti­mal indi­ca­tor is 98%. If you sprin­kle fluffy lime next to the root crops, you will be able to some­what reduce the high humid­i­ty.

Car­rots are often dam­aged by the car­rot fly — this pest destroys the crop even at the stage of its cul­ti­va­tion. If the car­rot was dam­aged by a pest, then it will have to be processed — for exam­ple, canned, frozen, dried. It is no longer suit­able for long-term stor­age for the win­ter.