Carrots

Carrots come in many different colors and shapes! I grew some that were purple outside and orange inside--really pretty! Besides that, they are good for you in different ways.

Carrots need really good soil, without a lot of organic chunks in it. Sandy loam is the best, but you can work the soil to make it more fine-grained so the carrots can grow straight and long. If there are rocks and organic chunks in the soil, the carrots will fork and twist, making it harder to peel and eat.

There are carrots that look like billiard balls, some that are tiny (like in the markets), some that are long and slender, some that are half-long and fatter, and some that are long and thick. The ball carrots would be good for tough soils because they don't penetrate the soil very deep.

Carrots can be planted now, and generally, carrots are planted 1/16th of an inch deep, and spaced10 inches apart in all directions (or as close as 6 inches if your soil is really fertile). It can take up to 14 days to germinate, and 90-100 days to mature. Carrots tolerate partial shade, and are a heavy feeder (they remove a lot of nutrients from the soil).

This is a good time to use the planting squares (I posted about them a few days ago) because the seeds are so small. Make sure to keep the seeds moist until they sprout, and then water normally. Over the winter carrots will keep well in the ground or in the refrigerator. If the ground freezes where you live, you can put a bale of straw on top of the carrot patch to keep the soil from freezing, and then you can up-end the bale to pull carrots when you want to have them--just be sure to mark where the carrot patch is before the snow arrives!

[Picture from: Mother Earth News]