Dig Up Crisp Vegetables this Spring

Your carrots, beets, and potatoes can survive harsh Northern conditions

Cover your crops to ensure fresh, crisp vegetables come springtime

Even in the north, it’s possible to harvest and eat crunchy carrots, beets and floury potatoes right from the newly thawed soil in your garden. Hillary Crowley leaves root vegetables in the ground to freeze all winter.

In spring, instead of the expected mush, she digs up crisp veggies. It’s no surprise, when you remember that potatoes are perennials, and carrots and beets are biennials.


North of Prince George, where Hillary lives, snow cover is reliable. However, in the fall – after the tops of her root crops have died down and permanent frost is imminent – she covers her plants with garbage bags filled with leaves.

These act like mulch, helping to keep the crowns of the plants frozen and her coveted root crops buried so they stay crisp. Exposed roots are more likely to turn to mush.

Hillary says covering her root crops is insurance against an extra early-spring or mid-winter melt, when thawing and refreezing – conditions more and more common now due to global climate change – are apt to heave 
her root crops right out of 
the ground.