Carrot Pulling & Carrot Categories

I harvested the carrots today. For our Latin lesson for today, I pulled up some Daucus Pastinaca. Except, that is the name for the wild carrot, not the domesticated one!!  :)  

Some of them look like they were not ready, but the tops are starting to die off on some, so they all got pulled.

They look much better cleaned up!  One of them was of a really good size. It is the first time we ever planted carrots. I know now not to plant them in the front yard soil in the future...it does not drain well due to being mostly of a clay consistency.

We separated them out into some interesting categories:

These were married.

Then, they got separated!!  :)

These are twins, or maybe triplets...

 This was the nursery for baby carrots!!

Carrots meets OctoMom!! ?? !!??

These will more than likely be chicken food...

The child called these 'nub carrots'...

Not sure what this one was at all...

Right now we are growing some heirloom carrots I purchased a few weeks ago. These are being done indoors. I have them in a 20 inch deep pot to be able to maintain their root development. They will have to e thinned to allow for optimal growth in a few weeks. These carrots differ from the typical store carrot in that the heirloom seeds are harder to come by or find and they are of original colors of deep purple, scarlet red, yellow, and white. The orange color for carrots only developed in recent centuries, but the other colors were original to the species in the Middle East for many years and were domesticated for human use.

These is when the seeds were first sown. There are sprouts now about two inches high, but none have the lace leaf pattern yet. We planted these the same day the terrarium was made for the child and his science activity.