Planting Carrots by Seed

Last year, I decided to try the Ed Hume's rainbow carrot blend in the garden for the first time. It was also the first time that I had ever grown anything in the newly renevated garden. I live in a rental house that came with a raised bed that was filled with a strange assortment of shrubs and pea gravel. On deciding that I wanted to turn it into a vegetable garden, everything had to be dug up. Upon digging, I discovered that the bed was filled with rocks as well as lots of burned and buried garbage. None the less, I decided to try and see what I could grow. The carrots did grow, but as you can see, they are short and fat and some of them split. This is due to the large amount of rocks found in the soil.

This year, I am trying the rainbow carrots again but took the time to actually dig up as many rocks from the soil as possible. The cause of the large amount of rocks is due to the location of the house. Elma is situated near the Chehalis river and my house is quite close to it. Every where you go that is relatively undisturbed, you will find large river rocks. I dug up a row and then hand picked as many rocks as I could and then put them in a pile. I did this at least for an hour until I felt that I had a higher ratio of soil to rocks. I then broke up the soil clods and planted the seed in a single row, spinkled a fine amount of soil over the top of the seed and then watered with my watering can. The seed will germinate in 7-10 days and will hopefully remain undisturbed by the neighbor cats. Despite the carrots being less than perfect looking, they were delicious to eat. Each color has a different taste: purple is very earthy tasting, orange is no different than any other orange carrot, yellow is sweet and has less of a carrot taste, and white is extremely sweet and doesn't even taste like a carrot! The white ones are most likely the least beneficial as far as beta carotene content, but I think eating white carrots is better than eating no carrots at all!

The best soil to grow carrots is rock-free and sandy. This is why carrots are grown commercially in California and other locations where carrot taproots can grow through the soil with out running into anything that would cause them to grow fat or form two or more splits through the root.

For more information, check out my article:

How to grow carrots


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