Grow Your Own Carrots

Lesson 6: Growing and Protecting Late Carrots

The Main Attraction
Your main crop carrots should be ready for lifting soon. Trust us, no supermarket carrots will taste anywhere near as good as the ones that you pull from your own garden! Meanwhile, if you sowed a batch of late main crop carrots a fortnight ago, look out for the seedlings: they'll be emerging soon. Thin them according to the instructions in Lesson 3, taking care not to attract carrot flies. As you clear areas of the vegetable plot by lifting carrots, give some thought to planting a "catch crop". This term applies to fast-maturing veggies sown in the space left by harvested crops. Radishes or lettuces make excellent catch crops.

Late Harvest
Did you raise a crop of early carrots? If you did, you'll know how delicious they can be and you'll be itching to use them to extend your carrot harvest as late as December. If you didn't, then now's your chance! Varieties like "Amsterdam Forcing", "Early Nantes" and "Flyaway" will all work with this technique. Sow in August and cover the crop with cloches when colder weather arrives in September or early October. Cloches are transparent frames that use the plants' own heat and any sun there is to keep the crop warm. You can buy simple cloches or collapsible poly-tunnels in garden centres. Allow the roots to grow in the normal way: they'll be mature in November. At this point, stop watering the crop. The carrots will keep perfectly well in the drying soil and can be pulled when needed.

Living in a Box
Gardeners who live in very mild parts of the country leave their carrots in the ground over winter. They cover the crop with straw and lift carrots as required. In colder areas, lift all your remaining main crop carrots in October and store them. The time-honoured technique is to twist off the stalks, brush off excess soil and place the carrots in a box of sand. Don't let them touch and don't store any unsound roots. Keep the box in a cool, frost-free location. Stored in this fashion, the carrots will keep until early spring.

Pic: GAP Photos/Zara Napier