Carrots are a great vegetable to grow in your backyard garden. They are easy to grow and a great source of Vitamin A and other nutrients. This blog takes a look at 4 reasons why you get bitter.
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High Temperatures make homegrown carrots Taste Bitter
If you’re having bitter carrots, the temperature could be one of the reasons. Carrots are most commonly grown in spring and fall because the high temperatures will make them taste bitter. But why taste bitter? Carrots naturally produce chemicals called glycosides, which are also found in a number of flowers and leaves. These chemicals are there to defend the plant against predators, and they can also be toxic to humans. The glucosides in carrots are known as falcarinol.
Although these glucosides are bitter, they are also what makes up the unique flavor and color of carrots. But when the temperature rises above 95 degrees Fahrenheit, they break down into the chemical Beta-Carotene, which is the same thing that gives carrots their color. When the plant is stressed due to the high temperatures, the plant will begin producing more Beta-Carotene.
To avoid bitter carrots, plant carrots early in the season to give them plenty of cool weather to grow and mature. You can sow carrot seeds three to six weeks before the last frost in your area. If the temperatures are right, you can sow a few later-season seeds to get a fall harvest. To keep them growing for as long as possible, put down a nice layer of mulch over the carrot patch to help preserve cool soil temperatures. To ensure you catch them when they’re at their most delicious, make sure you harvest carrots within days of picking!
Early Harvesting
Pulling the homegrown carrots out of the ground before they’re fully grown can form bitter carrots. This happens because different carrot varieties contain more terpenoids than others, which causes the carrot to have that bitter taste when pulled from the earth too soon. The flavor will vary depending on the variety of carrots you are using, but at the end of the day if you pull it out before it’s ripe – you will get a very strong and sometimes unexpected flavor profile that may then make your customer sick.
You should plan to start harvesting carrots after 70 days. Plan to harvest them every 2 weeks, or if you are selling at a market, remember that people will expect your carrots to be all harvested after around 85 days.
Aster Yellows Disease
When the aster leafhopper sucks on infected plants for an extended time, its saliva gets inoculated with the virus that causes the disease and will spread it like wildfire if it moves from plant to plant. The carrot leaves begin to turn yellow, the carrot growth slows down and the carrot roots are bitter with white hairs coming out — along with a lack of color. This certainly is one of the main reasons why you get bitter carrots.
Manage the Aster Yellow disease by removing infected carrots. Keep crops covered with mesh fabric and reduce weed pressure within the microbiome garden.
Improper Storage
After harvesting your yummy homegrown carrots, you should store them in the vegetable crisper of your refrigerator away from apples and pears. The ethylene gas that those fruits emit can cause bitter carrots. Trim the tops off of your carrots and keep the roots in perforated plastic bags in the vegetable crisper for an extra-long time: three to four weeks tops! Remember to separate the green tops from the rest of your carrot stash because they will only last for two to three days refrigerated as well.
Conclusion
The bitter carrots are caused by many factors discussed in this post. This article has also discussed the ways to reduce the chances of getting bitter carrots after you harvest them. We hope you enjoyed our blog about the reasons why homegrown carrots taste bitter. Happy planting!
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