If you’re like me, you harvested a lot of vegetables this Fall. Gardening in the Yukon is amazing! With long hours of sunlight, a crop of vegetables can be yours in 10 weeks. But then you have a huge harvest. You can’t possibly eat them all in a few weeks. Outside of freezing, how do you store vegetables? Can someone store vegetables all winter and keep them as fresh as if they were still in the ground? Well, I know a way. Bruce Pedersen, local chiropractor, has been using a method that keeps tons of vegetables from his garden fresh all winter long. Try his method and see if it works for you.
1. For carrots, beets, turnips: get a large paint bucket and place an ordinary kitchen trash bag inside the bucket as a liner. Don’t use the drawstring, get the ones with those flaps you have to tie with.
2. Pull up your vegetables from the ground. Don’t wash them. Just shake the dirt off. Don’t wipe or try to clean them. ”When people scrub a vegetable clean, they damage the skin and then they have to eat it right away or it will rot faster,” Dr. Pedersen says. So, don’t clean these.
3. Right at the truck, he had a cutting board and a knife. Take the knife and cut off the greens, slicing just at the top of
the carrot, or beet. For carrots and beets, you only make one cut–to take off the greens. With beets, you leave on the long root if it has one. For turnips, you’re going to make two cuts: one to clear off the greens, and the second to cut off the roots, so it’s a round ball.
4. These headless carrots all go in the trash-bag lined bucket, all on top of each other. Don’t worry if you get dirt in there. Be careful putting them in the bucket. If they’re long and break off on impact, then you have to dispose of them (eat them right there!) They’ll rot if they go in the bucket broken.
This bucket actually needs more carrots in it first.
5. Fill the bucket till it’s 3/4 full or 4/5. Then shake the bucket a bit to settle the carrots. Then take ordinary peat moss and fill the bucket with peat moss till it is full.
6. Then take the trashbag flaps and nearly cover the peat moss, leaving a hole showing the peat that’s about the size of a tennis ball. ”This is to help the peat moss breathe. You don’t want it all completely covered–but you don’t want more than a small hole either.” You’ll tape down the bag in place.
7. Store the buckets of vegetables in your garage over the winter, or a cool, dry place. Not a freezing place. And not in your house where it will be too warm. Maybe an entryway, or a back porch.
8. Over the winter, just dig out your carrots, beets, turnips, etc. from the buckets when you need them.
9. For potatoes, put the bunch of potatoes in a large styrofoam cooler, the kind you get at Canadian Tire. Fill that with peat moss too. Cover with a trashbag, stretched out over the top, taped down in places, but with enough space in other places to let the peat moss breathe. And just dig up a potato when you need it.
Why peat moss? Peat is a moisture regulator. It seems to draw in the extra moisture from the newly harvested vegetables and then gives it back to the vegetables when they get dry. It seems also to slow the decay of the vegetables, almost holding them in a stasis for a longer period of time. Sand doesn’t regulate moisture and is a lot messier to work with. Also you need more sand to cover the vegetables because it will sink down to the bottom. The peat mostly rests on top as a barrier to the cold dry air.
Bruce Pedersen has done this for several years and has had fresh vegetables all winter long. Hopefully, the method will work for you too.
One of his regular-size carrots!
Sounds great!!
On the styrofoam cooler, was the lid closed after the potatoes were covered in peat?
If you don’t have access to peat moss, sand is also said to work, although I’ve not tried it so I can’t personally vouch for it. Your carrots look amazing!
Hmmm. I’ve not heard good things about sand.
Kara: I corrected the article after asking Bruce what he did with the potatoes.
I’m putting in some info about sand vs. peat up there. Should answer these questions.
I wonder if coir would work instead of peat moss? More environmentally friendly.
Sounds interesting. You should try it and see! Report back here! Actually, it’s an interesting idea–though I hadn’t heard of coir before you brought it up.
Man this is a great post I’m probably gonna try this…now that I see that it seems to work =)
Interesting! we tend to think that Yukon would not be a nice place for gardening since its so up north. I guess we think wrong!
Just wondering if this chiropractor is the Bruce Pedersen from Lacombe Alberta?
That’s him, Joyce!
Do not cut off any part of a beet or carrot and leave around 1 inch of the leaf.The only part you should cut off is the majority of the leaf.Cutting more results is moisture loss from “bleeding”and they will not stay as long(same as if you had scrubbed them clean).
Hi I am new to your site. I was reading about how to keep carrots, onions, turnips, pototes over the winter. You said to keep them with Peat Moss do you mean the rgular Peat Moss. I like your site very much very interest ing and colourful.
Thanks
Sandy
Regular peat moss is fine.
Can you reuse the peat moss from year to year?
So, you do actually cut off part of the carrot (or beet) as shown in the picture of the carrot being cut?
Hi Lane, we cut off the top of the carrot, yes. You can try it both ways–as another poster has suggested keeping the tops on–but we always cut off the top and it works just great! Carrots are delicious through the winter.
J
Has anyone tried putting potatoes in a bucket and treating them just like the carrots? Do they do better in a styrofoam cooler?
Thanks for the info, will be trying this method very soon. One question for anyone. My peatmoss is dried out, do you add a light spray mist of water to the peatmoss so the vegetables have something in the way of moisture to draw from?
Very useful info. here.
I have some peat moss but I also have loads of wood shavings so was thinking of maybe adding some of that as well as peat moss. I might add saw dust while I load carrots in bucket.
Hi,
I washed the carrots unfortunately, should I do something different to keep them???
Thanks,
Isabelle in Vancouver
Thanks for the helpful info! I just put up my beets using this method, so we’ll see how it goes!
Can I use green moss collected in the forest, I live in the Kooteneys, of B.C.; it is an interior rain forest so moss is extremely abundant. Great post thanks from Tim in Burton
You could always do a small trial and see. I wouldn’t think that regular moss and peat moss would act the same though. I have used regular moss in plant arrangements and it is touchy. Peat moss keeps my night crawlers happy as clams all summer long for fishing.
I live in Alberta, and for the first time in 5 years, the great weather and hard work paid off! I have a tonne of vegetables that I’d like to store over winter. Previous years my carrottes would go rubbery with other methods. So I can’t wait to try your way. Pit moss make sense! Thank you
Isabelle
I’ve never had enough carrots or beets to worry about winter storage, and today I harvested and stored 40 pounds of EACH using this method. Thank you for sharing The Pedersen Method. With any luck, we’ll be eating garden carrots and beets for Christmas dinner.
Jessica
Fort Smith, NT
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My first garden in many years, I recall layering leaves that had fallen with carrots in a wooden bushel basket and kept in an unheated room of the house, they kept all winter long, don’t think i washed them. Pulled beets yesterday then layed them on the ground and hosed them off before reading your article. Going to try your method though with the washed beets and carrots yet to be dug. Thank you.
I think this is great I got my styrofoam and on my way.. I live outside Calgary on an acreage close to Bragg Creek …I had some very old peat moss that is rock hard how can I soften it and how moist should it be? Please help as I am excited to but things together!
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Hi just join into this discussion for a minute of fun…I was recently told about an old Doukabor method of storing veggies. Apparently because of the earths thermal energy, near to the ground always remains at zero. So even if it is far colder above ground, ground level is zero. So if one builds a box and digs a 1 to 2 foot deep space at the bottom of the box, now it gets a few degrees warmer. Now put down a layer of hay and start to layer veggies and hay. This is n old fashioned method and supposed to work, although I haven’t tried it. Any feedback on the thermal energy concept
sounds scientifically logical, what do ya think?
I dig a hole about 18″ deep in my garden after fall tilling. I put the carrots and beets into the holes and cover the trench with boards and about 6″ of dirt (I live in the West Kootenays – Nakusp BC). The vegetables keep all winter and into spring. What I don’t like about this method is that it is a little messy getting out the carrots and beets in the winter. I will try the ‘Petersen method” and see how that works. By the way, hi Bruce – didn’t relalize it was you until I started reading the posts. I am going to meet with David tomorrow and go out to your property. Cheers, Doug Brown
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Thanks for the info, but I’ll have to wait for next season. I should have checked this out before I dug and washed the carrots. Can’t wait for next year!!! Fresh garden vegtibles all winter can’t be beet!! (pun intended)
Thankfully my procrastination paid off…I think! Dug the carrots a few days ago, but left ‘em unwashed in the garage…heh, heh, nice when a character flaw turns out to be an asset…
I have a large crop of turnips and have been told to always leave about 2-3 inches of stalk to prevent rapid dehydration…why cut off the root? doesn’t that damage the skin and cause a more rapid deterioration? Can plastic totes be used? Do I need to dampen the peat moss while layering? Sorry for all of the questions…kinda new at all of this. Thanks
What kind of peat moss do you use, or what is recommended?
How do you keep a large quantity of carrots over the SUMMER.