Gardening
Carrots: A Healthy Snack You Can Grow
Carrots come in a variety of shapes, sizes and colors like this Purple Haze variety.
Photo courtesy of All-America Selections
Nutritious and flavorful carrots make the perfect snack and addition to salads, stir-fries, soups, and stews. They have the crunch of chips and crackers without the fat and calories. High in vitamin A and easy to grow, plant now for a flavorful fall harvest.
You'll find carrots in a variety of shapes and colors making them a fun and colorful addition to the garden and snack tray. Select from long and thin, short and stubby, round like a radish, and orange, red, yellow, white and even purple carrots.
Check the seed packet for the number of days from planting to harvest. Compare this to the number of days to the average first fall frost in your area. Finger-size carrots may be dwarf varieties or larger ones harvested when immature. These are usually ready to harvest in 50 to 60 days while other larger varieties grown to 3/4" in diameter need a bit longer, 60 to 70 days, to reach full size.
Plant the seeds in a sunny well-drained location. Dig a shallow trench, planting the seeds 1/2 to 3/4" deep in the summer when the soil is warm. Plant no more than two to three seeds per inch. Or mix the fine carrot seeds with potting mix and sprinkle this mixture over the soil surface. Be patient as it can take several weeks for the carrots to sprout. Gently water the new planting and keep the soil moist until the carrots sprout.
Make planting the small carrot seeds easier with pelleted seeds and seed tapes. Pelleted seeds are coated making them easier to handle while seed tapes have properly spaced seeds attached to a biodegradable paper strip.
Some gardeners double their harvest and reduce thinning by mixing radish and carrot seeds when planting. You'll harvest the radish seeds in about 45 days leaving space for the carrots to continue to grow to their mature size.
No matter the variety of carrots or planting method selected make sure the plants have room to reach their mature size. Thin plantings by removing excess seedlings when an inch tall, leaving space for the remaining plants to reach full size. Use the thinnings (young plants removed) tops and all in salads and as a snack. Convert the greens on any size carrot into pesto.
Provide a bit of shade and keep the soil moist when planting carrots in the heat of summer. Continue to water as needed throughout the growing season. Remove weeds that compete with weak carrot seedlings for space, moisture and nutrients. Avoid deep cultivation that can damage the carrot when removing weeds.
Carefully dig the carrots when the roots have reached full size. Remove all but an inch of the greens and store them in a cool location around 41° F in a perforated plastic bag. You can also store them in the garden by covering the planting with straw mulch, floating row covers or a low tunnel. The goal is to keep the snow off and the soil cold but prevent it from freezing solid. Harvest carrots throughout the winter and enjoy their sweet flavor.
With proper planting and care you will have lots of carrots to enjoy. Try grating some into burgers, juicing a few, adding them to baked goods, mashing them as a side dish, and adding them to soups and stews.
Melinda Myers has written more than 20 gardening books, including The Midwest Gardener's Handbook, 2nd Edition and Small Space Gardening. She hosts The Great Courses "How to Grow Anything" DVD series and the nationally-syndicated Melinda's Garden Moment TV & radio program. Myers is a columnist and contributing editor for Birds & Blooms magazine. Her web site is www.MelindaMyers.com.
Antiques
Finding Antiques and Collectibles Online
Photo courtesy of Wayne Tuiskula
Many of you who read this column are casual or serious collectors. There are many online auction sites where you can find things that you collect.
eBay is a common starting place for collectors, and most have bought or sold on the site. Along with being an auctioneer, I'm also a collector myself and keep an eye on eBay listings. When eBay first started business in the mid-1990s and running through the early 2000s, the flood gates opened with amazing items being listed every week. Auctions ran for a limited time and many sellers ran auctions without reserves (aka minimum prices that they were willing to accept). Nowadays, I see few new finds on eBay for the items that I collect. Many items have high starting bids and have yet to sell week after week.
Fortunately, there are many additional options for collectors. LiveAuctioneers (liveauctioneers.com) is one of the hosting platforms that we use. They describe themselves as "North America's Most Trusted Online Auction Platform" with over 7,000 auction houses listing their auctions on the platform. We have found that LiveAuctioneers draws the most bidders compared to other online auction platforms. I have also found many items for adding to my own collection on the site.
Invaluable is another one of the largest online platforms for auction houses. Invaluable (invaluable.com) was based in England before it was purchased by artfact.com in 2007. Artfact created the first internet-based price database in 1999, according to their website. Invaluable merged with Auctionzip in 2009. Many English and other European auction houses run auctions using Invaluable. A significant number of U.S. auction houses also use their services. Invaluable's website touts partnering with over 5,000 auction houses. Auctionzip is primarily known as a site where you can search for auctions, but they also host online auctions for auction houses.
For serious collectors, LiveAuctioneers and Invaluable are the major websites to check. However, there are many other online auction websites, and you may find some bargains when searching on sites with less traffic. Auctionzip auctions are another good place to search.
MaxSold (maxsold.com) is a Canadian based online auction platform. They run online estate auctions and also allow companies to run auctions on their platform. Auctionninja.com hosts online auctions for companies primarily in Connecticut, New York, and Massachusetts. Along with listing estate sales, estatesales.org also lists online estate auctions for companies. We use Proxibid (proxibid,com) when we run some of our online estate auctions. They host a wide range of auctions including heavy equipment auctions. HiBid (hibid.com) describes itself as "ideal for online and local auctions." BidSpotter (bidspotter.com) claims to be the "premier online platform for live and timed online auctions."
If you're looking for an in-person experience, shopping local and small might be the way to go. A friend once told me that he attended auctions by a company in Maine that auctioned everything from chickens to household items to cars to antiques. He found there was less competition for the antiques given the wide variety of items. I don't think you'll find any chickens being offered on these auction sites but searching them regularly should yield some bargains.
We are gearing up for several fall auctions. One will feature comic books and underground comic posters, and memorabilia. We are currently accepting consignments for that auction. I'll be teaching my "Evaluating your Antiques" class again this fall on Tuesday, October 3rd at Bay Path Adult Evening School in Charlton. Please visit our website https://centralmassauctions.com for links to upcoming events.
Contact us at: Wayne Tuiskula Auctioneer/Appraiser Central Mass Auctions for Antique, Collectibles Auctions and Appraisal Services www.centralmassauctions.com (508-612- 6111).