divaqs's Blog

Carrots
May 24, 2007 | 4:50 PM PST
Tags: carrots , nantes , overwinter

I grow carrots primarily for my kids. My kids think of carrots as an easy and desirable snack that is usually available to them.  It is not uncommon for me to hear the hose come on during the summer and when I check to make sure they aren’t having a wild water and mud fight, I find them instead washing carrots to snack on that they had just pulled up from the garden. I think I I’ve trained them well.

I currently have more than 20 feet of carrots coming up in my garden. 

 

I planted them in the bottom of my terraced garden bed, within easy reach of the kids. 

Out of the different carrot varieties, I prefer the Nantes variety. I like it largely for its sweetness and larger size. I also like that it looks more like the carrots in the store, making it easy to slip in to things for people that are choosy about anything that looks different or nervous about anything coming from the garden where bugs and dirt are.

If you think carrots are sweet, you should try an overwintered carrot.  After a freeze, carrots sugar content and sweetness goes up as the carrot adjusts for the colder temperatures. Though be warned, if you are like me, every time you eat a summer carrot after that, you will be wishing it was a winter carrot. I find that the Nantes varieties I get are great for overwintering.

Last year I got a fun carrot seed mixture from Cook’s Garden, which was intended for kids. It contained different kinds of carrot seeds that ranged across white, yellow, orange, red, and purple colors. The kids thought it was a lot of fun to plant and watch them grow.

An interesting thing I just learned is that the green carrot top foliage is edible.