Carrots

When I was a small child I ate so many carrots I literally turned orange. I’m not even joking! I guess it worked out because at 40 I only wear glasses because of migraines, my eye sight is excellent. Thankfully, all three of my children also love carrots so they are a snack staple in our house.

Carrots are definitely a crop you will want to plant in succession to continue harvesting fresh carrots all summer long and have extra to put up for the winter months.

Varieties

There are two types of carrots. Long root and Short root. Most carrots take 60-70 days to mature. If you have rocky soil and have to hand pluck the stones to make room, consider sowing short root carrots. Long root carrots can potentially grow up to a foot long so tilling just more than a foot deep is necessary. If the carrot cannot break through compact soil the resulting vegetable will have strange or stunted tips. While we are all used to classic orange carrots, they do come is many colors including: Red, Yellow, Purple and White!

Collecting Seeds

A carrot will not generally flower in its first year. If you plan to collect seeds from your carrots, leave a root or two in the ground after harvest. In the following year they will flower and seed. collect the seeds in a brown paper bag.

Canning/Preserving/Storing

Store your carrots in a wood crate between layers of straw or sawdust. If you do not have a cellar or basement to store them, consider canning or freezing. Canning: Hot pack quart jars with blanched carrot sticks. Pressure process 30 minutes Freezing. Slice your carrots into rounds or cut into small chunks. Blanch large pieces for 5 minutes, small pieces for 3 minutes. Dry, lay out on a tray to freeze. Once frozen vaccuum seal your meal or food prep portions. Drying: Steam blanch 1/8 inch slices for 8-10 minutes dry using a dehydrator. Great for dry soup mixes.

Harvest

Your carrots do not have to come up all at once unless you are needing to clear the space for another crop. Leave them in the ground until you need them, there is no better storage than soil. Your carrots can survive mild winter weather if they are well mulched, so let them be for the first couple weeks of fall. Before the true winter temps set in, pull your harvest to store in a root cellar, dehydrate, can or freeze.

Soil Type

When you are prepping your spring garden beds with manure, leave it out of the carrot bed. Slightly sandy soil with a neutral pH (between 6 and 7) is ideal.

Companions

Carrots like to be near their friends: radishes, chives, leeks, and cabbages. Herbs like rosemary and sage are friendly and there is an extra special relationship between carrots and tomatoes. Carrots tend to take nitrogen from the soil, so they do like legumes like peas and green beans who put that nitrogen into the soil. If you do not plant them together, consider rotating carrots into the previous years bean beds. Foes: dill, parsnips and potatoes

Sowing

Your carrot seeds can go into their rows 25 day prior to the last frost date. Seeds are tiny and can be hard to manage. I like to mix the seeds with some sand and spread the sand/seed mixture along your rows, cover just enough to keep them in place. Plant new rows every three weeks for a succession crop, sowing the last crop 60 days before your first frost date. Germination can be slow, 10-20 days. As the seeds germinate, thin giving approx 2 inches between plants. *Thinned carrot sprouts can be eaten in your salad or tossed to the chickens or bunnies.

Feeding

Do not fertilizer your carrots until the tops are three inches tall. Look for a little nitrogen, but more potassium and phosphate. (5-15-15 or 0-10-10). Repeat every three or four weeks.

Sourcing Seeds

I like to get my carrots from Seed Geeks. They carry a wonderful variety of different colors. Because we interplant our different varieties, and they cross pollinate each year, we don’t collect seeds. I get fresh new seeds each year.

click on the pic below to have access to the PDF printable fact sheet for Carrots