You can grow tasty carrots in your own garden with relatively little effort. The nutritious root vegetables grow in rows on loose and humus-rich soil in raised beds or in the vegetable patch and can be eaten raw or cooked.
What types of carrots can you grow in the garden?
There are several genera of carrot varieties for growing in the garden, including long and pointed bearing varieties such as Nantaise and Merida, short and conical vegetables such as Paris Carrots, and colorful varieties such as Yellow Stone and Creme de Lite.
A we alth of different varieties
There are a variety of different varieties of carrots that are now cultivated in private gardens and commercially. If you want to sow carrots in the garden yourself, you will usually be spoiled for choice in stores. However, most of the cultivated varieties on offer correspond to today's standard image of orange carrots. In particular, earlier cultivars of carrots from the 17th and 18th centuries were predominantly white, yellow or purple-violet in color.
Distinction based on intended use
Depending on the intended use, different types of carrots are differentiated based on their usage properties. For example, there is:
- long and pointed storage varieties for winter supplies
- short and cone-shaped carrots for preparing as a vegetable side dish
- Colorfully extravagant varieties in yellow, white or red
It is advisable to obtain detailed information about the growth characteristics and requirements of a variety before sowing the rows in the vegetable patch.
Long carrots for storage and kitchen
The most popular varieties with long roots include Nantaise, Merida, Ingot and Adelaide with a rather blunt tip. The pointed varieties Sperlings Cubic and Sweet Candle have roots that are just as long. With their long roots, these carrot varieties are perfect for storage, but they can also be eaten fresh after harvest.
Fun ways for colorful cuisine
Types of carrots such as Parisian carrots, which are barely over 4 cm long and grow almost spherically, are standard in kitchens around the world. Colorful effects can also be conjured up when cooking with the yellow roots of the Yellow Stone variety and the almost white Creme de Lite variety. When growing, mix different types of carrots to add color variety to your plate.
Tips & Tricks
In order to harvest particularly tender and fine carrots, you do not necessarily need to use special seeds. Carrots can also be harvested as relatively young plants by pulling the main roots, which are still a few centimeters long, out of the soil together with the leaves. Since there are no unripe carrot roots, young carrots can be eaten raw or cooked at any time.
