Q: I have been getting wonderful, colorful bunches of carrots from the farmers market. The only problem is storing them. It seem like no matter what I do — in the fridge, on the counter, in a bag, not in a bag, in the veggie drawer — the day after I buy them, they are limp and sad. Help!
Sent by Effie
Editor: Effie, the first tip is to cut off the carrot greens. Even if you are going to use the greens later, cut them off and store them separately to keep them from sapping nutrients from the roots. (Interesting tidbit: Did you know that fresh carrots, store long enough, will start to re-grow their leafy tops?)
Secondly, store the carrots in a covered container filled with water. This will keep them fresh for a long time! We have also seen a tip that says you can roll carrots in bubble wrap and that this will also keep them ultra-fresh. We have never tried that, but we can speak to the effectiveness of the water bath.
Readers, any extra tips for Effie?
More on Carrots:
• Five Ways to Eat: Carrots
• Playing with Your Food: How To Make Carrot Flowers!
• Can You Eat Carrot Tops?
• Yes, You Can Get a Great Tan from Eating Carrots
• Good Question: How To Keep Veggies Crisp in the Fridge?
(Image: Faith Durand)
How To Cook Fluffy, Tasty Quinoa
Perfect Summer Cocktail Recipe: Honey Bourbon Lemonade
Good Food to Share 
The Big Book of Small, Cool Spaces 
Apartment Therapy Presents 
The Eight-Step Home Cure 
Elizabeth Apron fro...
100 DIY Ideas for the 3-Day Weekend
Danielle's Charming, Classic Walk-Up
The water bath is a great idea--I used to work at a juice bar and this is the method we used (works for celery too). Just take care to change out the water occasionally.
My parents do a large garden every year, and last summer they had a surplus of carrots. My mom used those Debbie Meyer green bags (as seen on TV!). She cut the green tops off and was able to enjoy crisp carrots for 3 months after harvesting them.
I keep mine on the bottom shelf of the refrigerator in a sealed, plastic container wrapped in damp paper towels. So very similar to the water bath idea without the potential destructiveness of tipping it over and being forced to mop up the entire kitchen.
My grandfather is convinced that wrapping them in the Wall Street Journal keeps them fresh for weeks.
Most vegetables and herbs can be brought back from wilted/floppy with an ice water bath.
A simple soak will rehydrate them fairly quickly. I prefer to eat them before they get dehydrated though :)
I've never tried storing them in the bath though. I do soak potatoes if I know that I'll be making a lot of hash browns or some such.
I use the same water bath technique with celery. It keeps forever! usually the celery would be too rubbery to be appetizing after a few days (so it would be used for soup stock but one only needs so much of that), but if you keep it in a water in the fridge, it's stays nice and crisp for weeks. You may notice the ends opening up a bit, this is because the celery is actually trying to expose fresher flesh to soak up the water - not because it's disintegrating.
Thanks everyone, I will give the cold water a try!
Storing them wrapped in plastic works, too. Anything that will create a barrier between the dry fridge air and the vegetable will help. I keep mine in a plastic grocery bag and they keep quite well.
Most of the problems that you have with vegetables going bad are a result of moisture loss. Keep the moisture in and the veggies stay fresh. Store your carrots in the fridge in a sealed container or bag. Adding a damp paper towel will help as well.
Similar wisdom goes for other veggies as well. Got limp lettuce? Give it a soak in a cold water bath for 30 minutes and call me in the morning.
What, no one is going to mention Alton Brown's method? A veggie sandbox in the fridge?
I love the water bath idea, but I usually roast mine immediately and toss them in the freezer for later portioning.
my issue is that if i keep the baby carrots you can get at the store for more than a few days they start to feel slimy and that's just unappetizing, even if they are still fine.
The whole "water bath" method is based on an elementary biological process, called osmosis.
Basically, all water wants to be equally concentrated. However, the carrot, celery or other vegetables/plants contain some sugars and some small levels of minerals. These sugars/minerals are too big to seep through the skin of the plant, so when you put them in clean water, the water seeps into the plant to compensate. It works the other way around too--put a vegetable into heavily salted water and it should wilt.
So long as the water is clean, and has nothing else (like a salt/sugar/mineral) in it, it should revive the vegetable.
It's important to change the water though, as after a period of time diffusion starts, and the sugars and minerals can start seeping into the water, in an attempt to equalise everything, and the water starts leaving the plant again.