Maryland Grows

Easy.

All you need is water, good, loose potting mix, some short-length carrot seeds, a little fertilizer, a sunny place, and water.

Did I said water? A moist but not soggy soil is the key to growing carrots in containers.

Many varieties are available for containers:

• Small and round: Orbit, Thumbelina
• Baby: Baby Spike, Little Finger, Mini cor, Short’n Sweet who is probably the most available seeds on the market.
• Chantenay: Red-Cored Chantenay, Royal Chantenay

The depth of your container will determine which variety you can grow. You will need a minimum depth of 150% of the length of the carrot you want to grow. For example: If you want to grow Short’n Sweet, you will need a minimum 6” soil depth to accommodate the 4” length of the carrots. It doesn’t mean if you try to grow in 4” of soil you will not have carrots, it just means you will just have smaller ones.

The germination can require as long as two weeks and the seedlings may not emerge uniformly. Carrots don’t need to be planted in a row. Just distribute seeds on the surface, thin to about 1 seedling by square inch when the greens are 2″ tall. Use the thinnings in a salad.

The beauty of carrots is: if you need one, you pick one. It can be mature or young. If you don’t need one right away, leave it in the soil. That’s what happened to this specimen, seeded in August, of the Short’n Sweet variety growing in 12” of soil last fall. To answer your question, this baby was sweet and not fibrous.