October 10-14, 2016
Meet Your Carrot Farmer!
We did a little digging this week in Nutrition Expedition to find out more about carrots! Carrot farmer Kelli stopped by for a visit ;)
We first took a look at some carrot seeds to see exactly where a carrot comes from. Did you know that if you leave a carrot in the ground over winter, in the spring it will flower, leaving behind lots of tiny little seeds that will produce more carrots? The best time to plant seeds in Michigan is a few weeks before the last spring frost, so usually sometime in April/May. It takes roughly 2-3 months for the carrot to mature, and then it will be ripe for the picking, but you can leave it in the ground as long as you'd like! If you like winter carrots, which tend to be sweeter, planting the seeds around 10-12 weeks before the first fall frost is the way to go. To learn more about growing carrots, check out this link to the Farmer's Almanac.
Why Do Carrots Taste Sweeter In Colder Weather?
We followed up our discussion with a few carrot activities: carrot cleaning (using a scrub brush and a bucket of water, the children practiced washing carrots straight from the ground), carrot harvesting (we pretended to harvest fresh carrots from the "garden", using black beans for the dirt), rainbow carrot tasting, and an "Eye Spy" carrot hunt activity page. A farmer's work is never done!
Super Sleuth Questions
1. How does a carrot start out? (answer: as a seed)
2. What happens if you leave a carrot in the ground through the winter and into spring? (answer: its plant grows flowers, which produce carrot seeds)
3. What happens to the carrot if you plant it in late summer and wait to pick it when it's cold outside? (answer: it tastes sweeter)
4. After you pick a carrot from the ground, what must you do before you eat it? (answer: wash it first!)
