Carrots: Easy to Grow & Children Love Them

What we know today as carrots started out centuries ago as a bitter, pithy root. Since then, they’ve been bred and selected to grow orange and sweet, popular all around the globe. They date back at least 5,000 years. Pollen from carrots dating back even further has been found at neolithic sites.

Allotment Diary : Sowing Planting Carrots using Seed Tape: Just a quick video of me sowing Carrots on the allotment using Seed Tape rather than Seed for the first time. I have never use…

The Latin name for carrots is Daucus carota, a member of the Umbelliferae family. The word “carota” appears in writings dating back to two hundred AD.

Carrots started out as red, purple or yellow in color. The Dutch, in an effort to pay homage to their royal family, The House of Orange, bred orange carrots. These Dutch-bred orange carrots are the ancestors of our modern carrots.

Carrots will grow in soil that’s left unimproved after harvesting another crop for which the soil was improved. They like a sandy, well-drained soil free from rocks. If you have clay soils you will have better luck with round or “half-long” type carrots.

All of this is an important piece of this specific subject matter. Rototill or hand-dig the soil in your garden before planting carrot seeds. This will loosen up the soil, and make it easier for the carrots to grow down into it. They’ll also be more likely to grow straight. Bent and twisted carrots are the result of rocks or other foreign impediments in the soil that the carrots must find a way to grow around.

Let me continue with this story. Carrots even grow well in containers, as long as the container is twice as deep as the length of the carrots at maturity.

One other intriguing fact about this study. Sow seeds 2 weeks before your last frost. The seeds will germinate faster and at a higher rate the warmer the soil is when they’re planted. Make successive plantings every 2 weeks until mid-summer. Sow rather thickly and thin successively to a final spacing of two to three inches apart. The later, larger “thinings” can be eaten as baby carrots.

We should continue with this writing. Feed carrots plenty of potassium, (the third number on the fertilizer label), and go easy on the nitrogen (first number on the fertilizer label). Too much nitrogen can cause the carrots to branch and fork and makes the roots hairy and fibrous.

Carrots are a good companion plant for tomatoes. Both vegetables will benefit, growing lush green foliage and producing succulent tomatoes and carrots.

Home grown carrots are remarkably better tasting than grocery store varieties. Children often dig them up, brush the dirt off, and eat the carrot with the greens hanging down, like a certain cartoon bunny. I know I did