Colorful Carrots!

By Miles Necker, Master Watershed Steward

I’m always up for trying to plant a few flowers or a vegetable or two. Though I never seem to be successful, it is nice to try. Growing up I have found myself to almost have a brown thumb (something I’m trying to correct hanging out with the Master Gardeners). The only thing I have managed to keep alive any length of time is a Christmas cactus, and that is simply because cacti are virtually impossible to kill. So this year when my family started planting their garden my mother asked if I wanted to use part of one of the raised beds I had installed, turning our small front lawn into a series of raised beds with barely enough room to mow between. I figured ‘why not?’ and so began to consider what I wanted to plant. I obviously wanted something easy to grow. The only other condition I had is I wanted to be able to eat whatever I planted. Personally I don’t like just having flowers everywhere, I prefer my plants to have a use (apologies to my youngest sister, who lives for picking flowers and filling our house with them).

After much thought I finally chose my vegetable: carrots! Not only does the British military use them to see at night (World War II joke), but they are just good to eat, overall. You can cook them, yank them out of the ground and eat them, caramelize them, and pretty much anything you could want to do! Perfect! I had picked my vegetable. But now to go about learning how to not kill them and still end up with luscious carrots for my next salad.

This was a moment I realized: I may be in over my head planting anything at all, but still I soldiered on. I decided to learn everything I could before planting, and what follows are the Carrot Planting Basics.

Carrots are best planted just as spring begins to ‘spring’, around right now (mid-April). If you plant them much later you end up with shriveled carrots due to overexposure to heat. Plant them too early and the same thing happens due to not enough heat. So, they like to be planted when it is still cool, before the last frost date.

As far as soil goes, it is best to put them in loose, near neutral soil, as is common in a raised bed. If you’re going to plant them in the ground around your house make sure to break the soil up as they prefer a more aerated soil. If you’re going to fertilize your glorious taproots, it is best to use a 1-2-2 ratio fertilizer that is high in potassium, though they should do fine on their own.

Once you have your fertilizer and soils all sorted out, it’s time to plant the carrots. Dig a trench about ¼”. If you want multiple rows make sure their about 1’ apart from one another. It is very important to make sure that the soil around the carrots does not crust. To avoid this, make sure to keep slightly moist or cover the seeds with fine compost.

Throughout the growing season make sure to keep the soil around the carrots moist, but be absolutely sure to not overwater them as it can lead to nasty bloated carrots. If you start to notice the orange tops of the root poking out of the soil, cover it up. If left, the top will turn green and you can no longer eat it… it will affect the taste.

As soon as your carrots reach about finger sized you can start harvesting them if you wish. While it is perfectly fine to let them grow into gargantuan taproots of glory, the smaller carrots will tend to be juicier and more tender. If you mulch the soil well you can even keep carrots in the ground close to winter. Out of the ground they are best stored in a moist environment that is near freezing temperature.

Following the above directions, I am sure someone even like me can pull off growing carrots, and I’m going to try. As I write this I am glancing over at the seeds I’m going to be planting this weekend and dreaming of the delicious caramelized carrots I will be eating in the future.

Don’t have time or space to grow your own?  Support Your Farmer!

LEHIGH: Bleiler’s Produce Patch in Breinigsville

NORTHAMPTON: Ray of Sun Farm in Easton

BERKS:  Old Earth Farm in Oley Valley

BUCKS: Palovchak’s Produce in Doylestown