Any uses for carrot tops??

[dipence71]

Besides give to chicken or compost??

 

[big brown horse]

I have tons of beautiful carrot tops waiting for the answer to this question!

 

[freemotion]

You both need a goat!

BBH, won't your sheep or horse eat them? I know it's kinda the same as giving them to the chickens or compost, but...saves on feed for a meal or snack, and highly nutritious!

I dried a lot of tops last summer/fall when the goats had little interest, since I knew, come winter, those beet and rutabaga leaves would have lots of appeal. I just laid them out on the woodpile that was under a roof.

 

[patandchickens]

If you cut them off with a little bit of the top of the carrot attached (can only do this for carrots being eaten *now*, not for ones being stored), you can actually re-plant the top, with care, and get some little new carrot roots to eat later. IME this works better with smaller carrots than with larger ones; if the top is too profuse you may want to remove the largest leaves; and you do have to coddle the thing for a while (humidity, bright indirect light, etc). It does work, although how *worthwhile* it is may be a matter of opinion

Pat

 

[big brown horse]

You both need a goat!

BBH, won't your sheep or horse eat them? I know it's kinda the same as giving them to the chickens or compost, but...saves on feed for a meal or snack, and highly nutritious!

I dried a lot of tops last summer/fall when the goats had little interest, since I knew, come winter, those beet and rutabaga leaves would have lots of appeal. I just laid them out on the woodpile that was under a roof.

Neither sheep, horse nor bunnie will touch those things! Sheep eats the carrot, but RUNS from the top! It must smell funny to her.

I usually just mulch my potted tomato plants with them.

Are they edible?

 

[FarmerDenise]

Once they are big, I also just toss them to the rabbit, chickens or compost. Right now ours are still kind of small and I use the thinnings in the salad. I also chop them up into the dogfood I make.
Even if you only use them to mulch your tomatoes, that saves you on water and eventually adds to the fertility of your soil.

 

[big brown horse]

Cool FD, you can eat them when they are young.

(Yes, I confess, I have a mulch obsession!)