Monthly Tip

If you only buy carrots at the supermarket, you may think that they are all orange. It is believed that carrots were originally purple, with orange becoming popular through Dutch breeding. Several colors are now available at Farmers’ Markets and by growing your own. Springtime is a good time to start carrots from seed. Transplanting is not advised because you can easily damage the roots which are the relevant plant part.  Loose soil is important so that the carrots will grow straight. Scatter the seeds over the soil with as thin a covering as possible, keep moist until germination, and harvest when the tops expand to a good size. The Master Gardeners have done germination and growing experiments with different varieties and soil blends. Covering seeds with a thin layer of vermiculite yielded the fastest and highest rate of germination. Carrots are slow to germinate and could take as long as 3 weeks. Thin to 2 or 3 inches apart. For growing, a soil blend of 1/3 compost and 2/3 soil produced higher-weight carrots than blends with half of the soil replaced with either sand or perlite.

Some common problems are twisted roots from planting too close together, forked or deformed roots from clods and rocks in the soil, a hairy root from too much nitrogen and splitting from too much water.

More Information: Growing Carrots