In general, carrots don't do much growing this time of year. They will hold in the ground, but they aren't going to grow. The tops may die in the cold, in which case, the roots definitely won't do any growing. Carrots are biennial, so in the Spring, they will send out little white roots from all of the orange part to support the growth of flower stalks to make seeds. They often use up the stored orange root in the process. So, if you don't have a cold frame that is maintaining higher temps, you might as well dig up the carrots, as leaving them in the ground is not going to make them bigger. On the other hand, if it's too much work, just leave them. The only thing is digging anything out of frozen ground is hard. However, given the yo-yoing weather we've had this year, the ground probably won't stay frozen.

Thanks, over the years I have left them in the ground and dug when needed even as the tops become toast as you say. They probably reached their peak ripeness around Xmas as the temps & soil got frigid. We haven't had a decent snow in 3 years so generally they have been exposed to the elements. Keeping them in-ground cold storage now should help them last quality-wise for about 5-6 more weeks. If we get a spirt of warm weather ahead I'll dig them all up and keep in the fridge.

I left mine in the ground until Christmas one year and when I harvested them, the sliced, frost-cracked, carrots looked like snowflakes. Very pretty and appropriate for a winter dinner. The mouth feel was a little off, but their taste was great.

I probably would lay some down. Since you are getting a few days of the deep cold, it will help protect the soil from getting crusty before the snow sets in and gives you more thermal protection. Then if you want to dig out a few carrots while the cold and snow is still there, it can be easier to remove that layer of protective pine needles to get to the carrots.

Same thing can be done with flakes of straw laid over a root crop to make it easier to harvest when the snow is there. Lift a flake, harvest that block of root crop.

If your area tends to see more warm earlier, keep an eye on that. If it gets warm enough that the carrots will want to start showing greens, get deep mulching off them. What protects in the cold smothers in the warm.

Thx everyone, as of this morning the carrots were covered with a nice 5" blanket of snow. Glad I dug up a good amount of them before it hit, and also glad we did not lose power. I don't think the ground will freeze up but as soon as this snow melts I'll most likely dig up the rest. Another snow event is predicted to hit again by this weekend so Friday may be my digging day.

Well it looks like I try both ways now. The previous snowfall has now melted down to the point of exposing the carrot tops and some soil. With continued mid-teens F predicted before the next snow coming on Sat I went ahead and covered them up with about a foot of pine needles. It's waaay too cold to dig them up, yet.

I used to store them in the garden covered with a thick blanket of straw. They kept great until spring. But then the voles arrived and I've never been able to do that again.

When could you plant ta new crop using the same treatment, I wonder?

^^ If I understand your question correctly Annpat, these carrots (seeds) were planted around the 3rd week in August here. I also plant carrot seed again around mid March for an early summer harvest. I prefer the fall/winter carrots since they tend to be less earthy tasting and more sweeter.