To grow carrots in your garden, you will need: Your essential carrot planting equipment list Carrot ‘Flyaway’ – maincrop long-rooted variety with some resistance to carrot fly.Carrot ‘Autumn King 2’ – maincrop long-rooted variety.Carrot ‘Parmex’ – early variety with very short, round roots, good for containers.Carrot ‘Caracas’ – early short-rooted variety, good for growing containers and in heavy soils.Carrot ‘Tendersnax’ – early, long-rooted variety, very sweet and juicy.Carrot ‘Nantes 2’ – early variety, with medium-length roots.Long-rooted carrots are more particular about their growing conditions, needing deep, light, stone-free soils to grow well. Short-rooted carrots are less fussy than long-rooted, growing happily in heavy or shallow soils and even in containers. They take around 16 weeks to mature and are harvested in late summer and autumn. Maincrop varieties are sown from late spring. Carrots are divided into short- and long-rooted types, and also into early and maincrop varieties.Įarly carrots are usually sown in early spring and harvested in summer, taking around 12 weeks to mature. When to plant carrots depends on the type of carrot you’re planting. Tasty and healthy – what more could you ask from a vegetable? When to plant carrots

The orange colour, which comes from a pigment called beta-carotene, is converted by our bodies into vitamin A which helps boost our vision and immune systems.

We’ve been growing carrots to eat since at least the 16th century, and originally, carrots were purple or yellow-skinned, and orange carrots only appeared around the 17th century. The carrot ( Daucus carota) has been around for quite a while.

Carrot seedlings overwinter