Well the Northern Hemisphere is now tipped away from the sun and fall is nearly over and the frost has come to Massachusetts– even to Hull.

Early in November I got a message from Windsor, Vermont that they had frost. Then came news that there had been frost in West Cornwall, Connecticut, and then Norwell, Massachusetts. Reports were coming in that Carrot Days were being celebrated and that the carrots were good.

Here in Hull surrounded by water, frost did not come until November 17th, but Carrot Day is not only about good tasting carrots, it is about patience. It is tricky to choose the right day to celebrate Carrot Day. Do you want to celebrate Carrot Day as the marker of the first frost or do you want your carrots to sweeten with repeated frosts? I see that choice as part of Carrot Day’s value. You can’t choose when your birthday is but you can choose when to celebrate. Many a Friendsgiving is not held on the fourth Thursday of November. Is the weather lousy today, is there a hockey game, does the sixth grade schedule have a science class today? If the first day after the first frost is not the right day, well then let’s let the carrots get a bit more cold and celebrate the carrots on another day. The best tasting carrots have nights with repeated frost but the ground will not yet be frozen and the carrots’ cell wall structures will not have frozen.

Below is a chart of the first five frost in places where carrots were celebrated by Carrot Day readers.

Location	First Frost	Second Frost	Third Frost	Fourth Frost	Fifth Frost
Windsor, VT	10/31 29℉	11/01 31℉	11/02 26℉	11/03 31℉	11/05 31℉
Cornwall, CT	11/01 29℉	11/01 24℉	11/11 31℉	11/12 26℉	11/13 21℉
Norwell, MA	11/02 30℉	11/03 28℉	11/08 32℉	11/11 28℉	11/12 25℉
Plymouth, MA	11/02 28℉	11/03 28℉	11/11 30℉	11/14 31℉	11/18 30℉
Chatham, MA	11/03 31℉	11/12 31℉	11/13 32℉	11/19 31℉	11/21 31℉
Cambridge, MA	11/11 27℉	11/12 23℉	11/14 29℉	11/21 27℉	11/24 23℉
Hull, MA	11/19 31℉	11/20 28℉	11/27 28℉	11/30 27℉	12/01 30℉

Carrots from two gardens in Hull and carrots from a garden in Chatham.

Photographs from carrot harvesting for Carrot Days in Cambridge, Hull, and Plymouth. The photo on the left is from Carrot Day at the Community Charter School of Cambridge, where I now work. The middle photo is my garden in Hull. The photo on the right is from the amazing school garden at Manomet Elementary tended by Anne-Marie Ross.

There is something magical about picking a carrot. There is a prize hidden under the soil. I have been pulling carrots with students for over twenty years and each year and in each group there is excitement. There are always cries of joy and surprise and almost as much excitement about an extremely small carrot as a great big one.

Carrot Day can also be multi-generational as it was this year in Chatham, MA and West Cornwall, CT. These photographs show grandfathers and grandsons and the joy of pulling carrots together. As a grandfather, who pulled a carrot almost every day for two weeks this summer with a grandson, I can personally attest to the magic. The tender gaze of the mother as she watches the celebration of discovery and sharing is worth remembering as the days grow shorter and the nights longer and colder.

I am proud to say that the tradition of Carrot Day persists at South Shore Charter. We began celebrating the pulling of carrots about twenty years ago in the Garden Project. There was magic in planting carrots seeds with students in the spring and then harvesting carrots with them in the fall. I loved tending and caring for the carrots when the students were away in the summer and then we had the long wait with students for frost in the fall. It was at South Shore that the idea began, and June Fontaine continued that tradition there again this year. Here is some of what June wrote for the school’s newsletter to families:

This past spring, carrots were planted by first grade co-teachers Nikiesha Whitman and June Fontaine’s first grade students in the Garden Project. The first crop didn’t fare too well, due to all the rain, so a second crop was planted in early summer, along with tomatoes, cucumbers, eggplant and peppers. Students delighted in harvesting these crops when they came back to school in late August. They knew the rule of the carrots though; they were not to be harvested until after the first frost, as the cold converts the starches to sugar, making them sweet and delicious. Last week we got that first frost and so on Friday, the second grade students in Nikiesha’s pod who had planted the carrots, helped the first grade “neighbors” to pull these orange jewels. Watching the students work together was truly gratifying. After scrubbing them on Monday, the students enjoyed the carrots during snack time today. A good 95% of the class ate them! And several had more at lunch time.
Here’s hoping that the delicious sweetness of these “frost-kissed” carrots will give them a taste and desire to enjoy this nutritious vegetable in the future. Next year, we plan to plant many more carrot seeds so that a larger community can enjoy Carrot Day together. The garden offers a peaceful place to sit and relax, eat your lunch, or merely take a few moments to breathe in the heady aroma of mint or wild arugula.

Pictures of June and the students harvesting carrots at South Shore Charter. I agree with June that the garden does offer a peaceful place and a place of wonder and I also agree that 95% of the students eating carrots is good enough.

The Carrot Crew in Hull in early December and the first frost on carrots in Windsor VT a month earlier. I know that not everyone succeeded with carrots this year but lets hope you grow good ones next year.

Soon I will be ordering seeds and I hope you join us in planting, weeding, thinning, tending, protecting and waiting for the frost and cold for a truly delicious carrot. Only a few days until the solstice and then the days will begin to lengthen.