Carrots
Carrots need no introduction and because they are a favorite you probably don't need advice on how to use them. You might like to know that we don't grow many carrots on our farm for the same reason we don't grow beets, which is that our soil isn't consistently moist enough to grow a good carrot. We have sandy soil and a specific kind of irrigation system that makes growing carrots difficult. The good news is that our best bud Chris from French Farms and Chuck from Verde Farm both grow a mean carrot crop. They are both in Homestead where the soil holds moisture better.
The best carrots come out of the ground when the weather is chilly, better yet when it's frosty. Carrots, like many other storage crops (think roots like beets, parsnips, etc) convert starch into sugar when it's cold; they do this to keep the water in their cells from freezing. If this phenomena is interesting to you, check out this article in the Washing Post that goes in depth about the sweetness in carrots in cols weather. As you probably already know, it doesn't get cold much in South Florida so our carrots may not be the sweetest you've ever had, but they are darn good and when the weather is chilly you better believe the freshness and sweetness of our carrots can't be beat.