Storing Carrots

[Brod]

I'm about to lift my carrots and plan to store them in sand in containers. Question is should containers be airtight or open to flow of air?
I'm worried about rodents having a midnight feast so would prefer to put them in vermin proof containers like metal boxes or the thick plastic 40 lt drums. Should I drill holes in them ?

[gdb]

i stored mine once in a plastic container - with a more or less airtight lid - and the whole lot went rather manky. (and few things are worse than a tub full of manky carrots ).

these days i keep them in a couple of old wooden drawers - the big deep ones from the bottom of old fashioned desks - in the garage. they've kept well so far.

i also use peat/sack of potting compost instead of sand - but i'm not sure that makes a difference.

[Rosendula]

I'm hoping (daren't say 'expecting') to grow much more next year and have realised that I need to sort out storage before then. I was also wondering about storing carrots in plastic and asked on the BBC's message board. I have only had one reply so far, from someone called FarmerSteve:

Plastic is not suitable as it will not let the carrots breathe enough. At the same time they do not to dry out
All roots will die and rot if they cannot breathe in storage
Personally I do not think crrots tatse nice after storin in ssand but that is just a personal view
Best thing is to ridge them up and dig them as you need them but this is no good if the ground gets waterlogged or if slugs are a problem

[moocher]

me grandad used half a wooden barrel with sand,years ago.