Japanese kintoki type (sweet red) carrot. These silky carrots are grown near Kyoto, Japan, where they are traditionally eaten on the Japanese New Year, often carved into the shape of a plum blossom to represent fertility in the coming year. Precious image from Baker Creek Heirloom Rare Seeds
Colorful carrots – Rose, Red, Classic Orange, Purple Sun, some dark purples that are almost black, White Satin – brighten your table any time of year! Their pretty ferny foliage is lovely in your garden. It is so much fun pulling gorgeous fat, long carrots! Growing your own, fresh and organic, is downright satisfying. What a beautiful fragrance…. Tops can be eaten too, or are prime in your compost.
Varieties Galore! Thumbelinas – fun for the kids to grow, stubbies, conical, to over 2′ long depending on your soil! If you are hungry sooner, choose early maturing shorter varieties. Plant different kinds for the fun of it! With mixed color seed packs you never know which color you will pull up! Danvers is an excellent choice for cooking. It has a higher fiber content than Nantes sorts. It grows well in heavier soils and stores well in the soil at maturity. Super juicing carrots are Healthmaster or Danvers. Autumn King and Scarlet Nantes are excellent cold tolerant varieties.
If you would like some tender little snacking carrots, quick growers to show the kids, or minis for your pup, try early Adelaides from Johnny’s Selected Seeds! They say ‘True baby carrots. Unlike most “baby carrots,” which are harvested at an immature stage before properly filling out, Adelaide is a true baby, meaning it has an early maturity and forms a blunt root tip at 3–4″ long.’ Only 50 days!
At left is the French heirloom Parisian, an early orange-red carrot that grows almost more like the shape of a large radish. It excels in clay or rocky soil where other carrots have problems developing properly.
Carrots are scrumptious companions! Planted a little too closely and not thinned, they twist together in the garden, but better yet, from a Pea lover’s point of view, is they enhance Peas while the Peas are growing! They grow way slower than Peas, lasting while pole peas are getting their full height. They are quite faster than cabbage, so perfect to grow among cabbages until the cabbages would finally grow over them! Onions, leeks and chives help repel the carrot root/rust fly. Carrots thrive when Cilantro, Chamomile, Marigold are planted with them. Mark Macdonald at West Coast Seeds says ‘ Carrots planted near tomatoes may have stunted roots, but will have exceptional flavour.’ I’m going to try this!
Skinny carrots for roasting are a treat! The Tiny Farm blog says: Sprint, a new Amsterdam forcing variety (good for growing in challenging conditions) matures long and slender in a listed 42 days. That’s fast, over two weeks ahead of the quickest regular carrot we grow (the fabulous Nelson).
SOIL Slightly acidic to neutral. Stone/rock free loose soil is best for those long rooted champions! But they are smart enough to wind their way around a stone or two if you ask them to grow there. They like steadily moist, not wet, soil. If the soil gets dry and you give them a big soak, they are likely to split, and that’s not pretty. NO manure! It makes them hairy and they fork.
Their favorite season in SoCal is winter when the soil is usually more continuously moist. Right now we are in a drought, so you must do it yourself. Best germination soil temps are 50 F to 75 F. Cornell U says 60 to 70. Depending on your source, 65 to 85! They will germinate at as low as 40 F, but it takes a long, long time.
For varieties your nursery doesn’t carry, plant from seed. First, get fresh seed! Germination percents go down year by storage year. 3 years is about it for carrot seed.
Soaking seeds, and preSprouting makes a lot of sense. Advantages of seed soaking are you don’t have to water daily 14 to 21 days, and you get carrots 2 weeks sooner! Your seeds germinate more quickly, and you get more complete germination of all seeds planted! Add worm castings to your soil for faster germination, improved nutrient uptake and seedling growth rate, to boost immunity and for additional water holding capacity! Be sure your seed is fresh to get a high % of germination! The seeds are hard, so if you don’t at least presoak, figure on 14 to 21 days of keeping them moist in the garden before they germinate.
PreSoaking is easy. Pop the number of seeds you want to grow, with a few extra for whatever might happen to them, in a cup of warm water, soak overnight. On a raised edge plate, lay them on one side of half a folded paper towel. Lay the other half over and pat dry. Easy peasy! Weather tip: Don’t soak your seeds the night before a rain is expected. Wait for good planting conditions. Rain compacts the soil, making it harder for tiny sprouts to break through, and seeds might be washed away or covered too deeply with soil. Tiny sprouts may be broken if sprouting seeds are shifted in wet soil. After the rain, get your three pronged mini fork and rough up, fluff the soil that got compacted. A finer texture is easier for seedlings to break through.
PreSprouting is devilishly clever! Sprouted seed will grow in soils too cool for germination! You take only the sprouted seed to plant into the garden – that’s a form of 100% germination! Grab a raised edge plate, lay a paper towel on it. Spread your seeds out a 1/2 to an inch apart, so there is room for their sprouts. Spritz them with good water. Lay another paper towel over them and dampen it too. Put the plate in a plastic bag, tie it, keep moist until they germinate! Germination time will vary per moisture and ambient temperature where they are kept.
Just before planting time, put them on a dry paper towel and let them drain if needed. Grab some tweezers and plant very carefully immediately. The sprout is the root, so it goes down. Not to worry if they just plop in the planting hole any which way. They know what to do and will find their way, but the seed itself needs to be at the right planting depth so the little leaves can get up. Since many carrot seeds are tiny, this reduces waste of your seeds, and no time is lost later thinning these tiny plants! If there are failures, presprout immediately again and replant in the empty spaces.
There is the boiling hot method for PreSprouting, Priming! Larry Hodgson, the Laidback Gardener, has a terrific page for you!
Or per Steve Albert, you can do cold stratification! He says:
1) Mix the seed with damp potting soil or seed starting mix or peat moss; spread the mix across a seed-starting tray or paper plate. 2) Set the plastic bag in the freezer for twenty-four hours but not longer. The twenty-four hours is enough for the seed to think it has gone through a winter, but not long enough to freeze and damage cells inside the seed. 3) Then place the seed and soil mix—still inside the plastic bag (use a large zip lock bag for a paper plate)—on a seed-starting heat mat or refrigerator top or another appliance top at 70° to 80°F for three days or longer—until the seed sprouts.
If you don’t presprout ~ Carrot seeds are very small, and it is difficult to obtain a stand if the soil is crusty. Prepare your soil with a compost mix containing fine bark/wood bits for water holding capacity. Worm castings have good water holding capacity too. Try mixing carrot seed with dry sand to get even distribution. Then, instead of covering with soil, cover the seed 1/8-inch deep with sawdust, vermiculite or manufactured potting soil. Water the row soon after planting is complete. This method will allow the seeds to stay wet and prevent crusting. Another cover is a thin layer very fine mulch, Gorilla Hair, or the like. Seedlings can push through it and it keeps the soil moist. Gardeners have various covering methods that they prefer ~ covering seeded mini trenches with boards, single layers of burlap, old floating row covers laying right on the ground. Whatever they use, they take it off as soon as the roots emerge, so you still very much have to water to keep the soil moist until they are stable.
The minute you do that, if you didn’t before, scatter whatever you use to kill off slugs/snails. Do it for 2 to 3 days to kill off the generations. Cover with something like aviary wire to protect from birds and digging predators like skunks, let the seedlings get sun and airflow, so they will be able to be watered.
You can see how tiny and vulnerable carrot seedlings are! YaYa Carrot seedlings in the morning spotlight at Rancheria Community Garden, Santa Barbara CA by Cerena Childress. Note the thin layer of fine mulch keeping the soil moist, preventing crusting.
At minimum, plant at the spacing they need at their maturity, but, the wider the spacing the larger the carrot! It’s just like with Chard. The space determines the size of the plant. For broad carrot shoulders like Chantenay, plant as much as 3″ apart. For baby carrots, for you or doggie treats, plant closely, a half inch or slightly less apart. If you overplant, usually happens, thin the carrots when they are 1 to 2 inches tall. Barbara Pleasant says this about thinning: ‘Once seedlings have germinated, there can be no disturbance to the soil within a thumbnail’s distance from the base of the plant. Innocently pulling a weed might have unintended effects upon the little growing carrot (the forking risk again), so snipping is safer than pulling when you’re thinning and weeding close to your little carrots.’
Keeping the seeds moist is a commitment that must be kept. Do put down Sluggo or the like, before the seedlings come up because seedlings can be mowed overnight. Weeding is an important delicate operation. Carefully clip little weeds away rather than pulling and disturbing or breaking tiny carrot roots. That one tiny root is all they’ve got; it IS the carrot!
If you are planting in early fall, and there are still some hot days, plant your peas and carrots separately in 2 to 3″ deep slight trenches with low sloping sides so when you water, soil doesn’t wash down and cover the seeds too deep. Cover with aviary wire so the birds don’t pluck the pea seeds or seedlings of either away. Before expected hot days, cover the wire with boards to protect the pea seeds from being baked, the peas stay moist. Raise one side of the board enough for a little airflow underneath, so the seeds can be moist, yet not so moist they will rot and nobody bakes.
If you are winter planting, keep the seeds and the soil as warm as you can. Cover the soil with 10 mil CLEAR plastic to let the sun shine through, not black. Cloches, bought or homemade, with vent options, can be used. Cold frames are terrific and greenhouses wondrous!
Keep your soil loose. It and your seeds literally need to breathe, just like we do. Don’t walk on your soil, put down boards or make pathways, but don’t step in your beds. Don’t push the soil down when you plant your seeds or transplants and squish all the air out and close the air channels. Don’t crush your soil organisms; leave those channels and spaces so they can do their work, and let water through for them and your carrots! Carrots have those deep roots and need water all the way down! In the beginning, water lightly, dribble, even only mist. Let the soil settle of its own accord around your seeds and transplants. Compacted soil is essentially dead soil. Not even fertilizer can get in.
Shoulders, hilling. When carrots are ripe, they naturally push up and grow above the soil line! Planting seeds deeper doesn’t compensate. Instead, have extra soil handy to hill over those shoulders, or pull some of the trench slope over them. Uncovered shoulders turn green and need to be cut away. Harvest soon!
Harvest when their orange color is bright, when their flavor and texture are optimum. Water well prior to harvest to ensure the roots have absorbed their maximum capacity of water and are easy to pull. Don’t harvest carrots too soon, sugars are formed relatively late.
STORAGE Remove the foliage right away. It takes moisture from the carrot, causing it to wilt. Right away put them in the coolest part of the refrigerator in a plastic bag or wrapped in a paper towel, which will reduce the amount of condensation that is able to form, and retains flavor. Research shows the especially valuable (all-E)-beta-carotene isomer is well-retained in carrots stored properly. Store away from apples, pears, potatoes and other fruits and vegetables that produce ethylene gas since it will cause them to become bitter. You can store them for months, but for best flavor, eat ’em a lot sooner!
SeedSaving is SO easy! Just clip the seedhead off and store it. If you want to, remove the seeds from the head for less bulky storage. But do leave the fuzz on the seeds. Seeds in packets come with no fuzz, but the fuzz wicks water to the seeds when planted. They stay moist, germinate a good week sooner!
Carrots, Daucus carota subsp. sativus, are in the Umbelliferae family, make these magical flower heads, then seeds! Every season let one or two grow up and make beauty in your garden – flower food for the pollinators/beneficial insects, then seeds for you and the birds!
In the photo, on the same plant at the same time, green buds, white flowers, and ready-for-harvest brown seeds! By Cerena Childress at Pilgrim Terrace Community Garden, Santa Barbara CA
Culinary Carrots! Eat them rinsed and raw right at the garden. Many a carrot never makes it to the kitchen! Pare into thick strips, flowerettes. Diagonally chop, ripple slice, dice. Make lengthy Julienne quarters. Freshly shred into green salads, add as garnish on top! Make traditional classic carrot & raisin salad. Carrots, celery and greens juices, smoothies. Steamed & stewed. Roasted, grilled on the summer barbie. Add as nutritious and delicious Carrot Winter Cake, muffins, cookies, pancakes and waffles, quiche, cheesecake! Spicylicious Carrot jam. Carrot ice cream ~ See these images, with recipe links, that will positively make you drool!
Nutrition?! Oh, yes! Peel your carrots? Old grocery store carrots may have bitter skins, but not likely straight from the ground from your organic garden! Clean is better and keep the skin! Or pare and give the skins to your compost! But here is where ORGANIC counts! Organic produce isn’t sprayed with pesticides that collect in the skin, the plant’s natural filter against foreign bodies – probably why non organic carrot skins are bitter…. “Organic Authority” magazine reports that carrots contain a high degree of phytonutrients, many of which are found in the skin or immediately beneath it. Consuming phytonutrients leads to a number of health benefits, including lessening your risk of cancer and boosting your immune response. The benefit carrots have always been known for is their high beta carotene content, which improves eye and skin health and also boosts your immune system.
If you must ‘peel,’ here is a tip from kc girl online: I use one of those white scouring cloths used for non-stick pans (instead of the brush). Hold it in your palm, wrap it around the carrot, and run it up and down with a little twisting action while under running water. It kind of “sands” the carrot and takes off just a little of the skin.
Purple Carrots! The ORIGINAL wild carrot was white or purple! The domestic carrot we eat today has been bred for size, a less woody core and sweetness! Purple carrots have even more beta carotene (good vision) than their orange cousins! Like blueberries, they get their purple pigment from anthocyanins, powerful antioxidants that protect key cell components. They grab and hold harmful free radicals in the body, help prevent heart disease by slowing blood clotting, and are anti-inflammatory (arthritis). So, they are cheaper than blueberries, higher in beta carotene, and you can grow them just about anywhere!
Safety note! Carrots are generally very sweet. If you have diabetes or are at risk for developing the condition, read up about it, please.
Statistics Carrots are one of the ten most economically important vegetables crops in the world. 2020: China 44%, Uzbekistan 7% and the US 3%. 2021: California produces over 85 percent of all carrots grown in the United States! California has four main production areas for carrots: southern San Joaquin Valley and the Cuyama Valley (Kern and Santa Barbara Counties); the southern desert (Imperial and Riverside Counties); the high desert (Los Angeles County); and the central coast (Monterey County).
Carrots have true Fans! The Holtville CA Annual Carrot Festival has been on since 1948! This year, 2023, it is Feb 3 to 12! The 76th Carrot Parade & Street Fair is February 11!
Mazel tov! To your very excellent health!
Updated 3.29.23
Love your Mother! Plant bird & bee food! Think grey water! Grow organic! Bless you for being such a wonderful Earth Steward!
The Green Bean Connection newsletter started as correspondence for the Santa Barbara CA USA, Pilgrim Terrace Community Garden. Both Santa Barbara City’s remaining community gardens are very coastal. Climate is changing, but it has been that during late spring/summer we are in a fog belt/marine layer area most years, locally referred to as the May grays, June glooms and August fogusts. Keep that in mind compared to the microclimate niche where your veggie garden is.
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