To Pick or Not To Pick

Apparently, I have no clue as to when to harvest my vegetables, as evidenced by the giant zucchini and now the giant v. tiny carrots. I read somewhere, Howard Garrett's book? carrot seed package? that carrots are to be picked when the tops are wilted. That didn't sound right to me because when I see carrots with tops in the produce section of the grocery store, they always have pretty tops. But I tried it anyway. I waited and waited and the tops never wilted. They just got bigger. So I pulled up a test carrot and it was enormous, so I pulled up several more. Some of them were tiny babies, some were normal sized, and a couple were freakishly large.

We, well, not me, ate some for lunch on Sunday. I made a roast for us and we invited the visiting preacher and his wife. I always put carrots in the pot roast. I don't like them, but the rest of my family does. I guess they were OK. Nobody complained. But I didn't use the huge ones. For some reason, I think that overgrown ones might not be good.

The goats and donkeys enjoyed the carrot tops.

Oh yeah, I harvested some broccoli, too. In the middle of December. Amazing!