By Melinda Myers
Nutritious and flavorful carrots make the perfect snack and addition to salads, stir-fries, soups, and stews. They have the crunch of chips and crackers without the fat and calories. High in vitamin A and easy to grow, plant now for a flavorful fall harvest.
You’ll find carrots in a variety of shapes and colors making them a fun and colorful addition to the garden and snack tray. Select from long and thin, short and stubby, round like a radish, and orange, red, yellow, white and even purple carrots.
Check the seed packet for the number of days from planting to harvest. Compare this to the number of days to the average first fall frost in your area. Finger-size carrots may be dwarf varieties or larger ones harvested when immature. These are usually ready to harvest in 50 to 60 days while other larger varieties grown to ?” in diameter need a bit longer, 60 to 70 days, to reach full size.
Plant the seeds in a sunny well-drained location. Dig a shallow trench, planting the seeds 1/2 to 3/4 of an inch deep in the summer when the soil is warm. Plant no more than two to three seeds per inch. Or mix the fine carrot seeds with potting mix and sprinkle this mixture over the soil surface. Be patient as it can take several weeks for the carrots to sprout. Gently water the new planting and keep the soil moist until the carrots sprout.
Make planting the small carrot seeds easier with pelleted seeds and seed tapes. Pelleted seeds are coated making them easier to handle while seed tapes have properly spaced seeds attached to a biodegradable paper strip.
Some gardeners double their harvest and reduce thinning by mixing radish and carrot seeds when planting. You’ll harvest the radish seeds in about 45 days leaving space for the carrots to continue to grow to their mature size.
No matter the variety of carrots or planting method selected make sure the plants have room to reach their mature size. Thin plantings by removing excess seedlings when an inch tall, leaving space for the remaining plants to reach full size. Use the thinnings (young plants removed) tops and all in salads and as a snack. Convert the greens on any size carrot into pesto.
Provide a bit of shade and keep the soil moist when planting carrots in the heat of summer. Continue to water as needed throughout the growing season. Remove weeds that compete with weak carrot seedlings for space, moisture and nutrients. Avoid deep cultivation that can damage the carrot when removing weeds.
Carefully dig the carrots when the roots have reached full size. Remove all but an inch of the greens and store them in a cool location around 41 degrees F in a perforated plastic bag. You can also store them in the garden by covering the planting with straw mulch, floating row covers or a low tunnel. The goal is to keep the snow off and the soil cold but prevent it from freezing solid. Harvest carrots throughout the winter and enjoy their sweet flavor.
With proper planting and care you will have lots of carrots to enjoy. Try grating some into burgers, juicing a few, adding them to baked goods, mashing them as a side dish, and adding them to soups and stews.
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Melinda Myers has written more than 20 gardening books, including the recently released Midwest Gardener’s Handbook, 2nd Edition, and Small Space Gardening. She hosts The Great Courses “How to Grow Anything” instant video and DVD series and the nationally syndicated Melinda’s Garden Moment TV & radio program. Myers is a columnist and contributing editor for Birds & Blooms magazine and her website is www.MelindaMyers.com.
