Vegetable · Apiaceae
Carrot
Daucus carota subsp. sativus
Hand it deep, loose soil and steady water, and the carrot answers with sweet, straight, taper-tipped roots.
Full sun
Every 3–7 days
41–77°F · 5–25°C
60–80 days
Overview
The carrot is a cool-season root crop crowned with feathery green tops, doing all its real growing out of sight as a long, sweet taproot. It sits in the same family as parsley and dill, with a wild ancestor traced back to Central Asia. That familiar orange root is only one of its faces, since the crop also comes up in purple, red, yellow, and white.
Whether a carrot is easy or stubborn comes down to the ground it grows in. Deep, loose, stone-free soil lets the slender taproot drive cleanly downward, while clay or buried rocks twist it into a forked, blunted stub. Set the bed right at the start and the rest is mostly waiting.
Treat this biennial as an annual: you lift the root in its first year and never glimpse the flower unless a plant survives the winter. Drop the seed where it will stay, thin out the crowd, never let it go dry, and tilt the crop toward cool weather for the sweetest roots.
Care
The short version: full sun over deep, loose, rock-free soil, steady moisture of roughly an inch a week, seedlings thinned so each root can swell, and a low-nitrogen feed dug in before the seed goes down.
Light
Give carrots full sun, six hours a day or more, though a bit of afternoon shade is fine where summers turn fierce. Pile on too much shade and you get plenty of feathery top and a thin, sorry root.
Water
Hold the soil evenly damp, around an inch (2.5 cm) a week, and water deep so it reaches all the way down the root. Swing the bed from parched to flooded and the roots turn bitter, tough, or split right open.
Soil
This counts more than anything else. Carrots ask for deep, loose, well-drained sandy loam picked clean of rocks, clods, and debris at a pH of 6.0 to 6.8, since anything heavy or packed forks and stunts the taproot.
Temperature
As a cool-season crop, the carrot is most content between 41°F and 77°F (5°C to 25°C). It shrugs off frost, and a late chill flips starch to sugar and sweetens the root through.
Humidity
Plain outdoor air suits it, so there is no number to chase. What the carrot cares about is steady moisture in the soil, not anything floating around it.
Feeding
Dig a low-nitrogen balanced fertilizer such as 5-10-10 into the bed before sowing, with an optional side-dress around midseason. Too much nitrogen or fresh manure does the opposite, throwing out forked, hairy roots.
Pruning
Nothing needs cutting back, but thinning is a must. Once the feathery tops stand about 2 inches (5 cm) high, thin to 2 to 3 inches (5 to 8 cm) apart, snipping at soil level rather than yanking so the roots left behind stay put.
Size & spacing
The leafy tops reach about 8 to 16 inches (20 to 40 cm) while the roots crowd in beneath. Thin each one to 2 to 3 inches (5 to 8 cm) apart so every taproot has the room to bulk up.
When to plant
Carrots favor the cool and do their best at the season's edges. Get the first sowing in a couple of weeks ahead of the last spring frost, keep dropping seed every few weeks into midsummer, and the roots arrive from early summer through fall, sweeter for whatever frost touches them.
Northern hemisphere
Southern hemisphere
Typical months for a temperate climate: start earlier in warm zones, later where spring frosts linger.
- Plant: Direct sow outdoors 2-3 weeks before the last spring frost once soil is workable and at least 7°C (45°F); succession sow every 2-3 weeks through midsummer for a fall crop
- Harvest: Harvest roots at any usable size, typically 60-80 days after sowing; fall crops can stay in the ground into cool weather, which improves sweetness. Flowers only appear in the second year if roots are overwintered.
Hardiness
USDA hardiness zones: 3–10
Temperature: down to -40°C
Troubleshooting
A carrot keeps most of its troubles hidden until you lift one, so the tops seldom raise the alarm in time. Read the handful of signs that do surface, and pull a sample whenever something feels off. Find the match below, then mend the bed before you sow again.
Rust-packed tunnels winding through the flesh
Slim channels clogged with rust-brown grit are the calling card of carrot rust fly larvae, while neater round holes point you toward wireworms. A few nibbles can be pared away, but a root riddled through belongs in the compost. Drape floating row cover over the bed from the day you sow, shift the patch away from where the carrots grew last year, and wait out the first flight before sowing.
Fix:
- Harvest promptly and discard heavily damaged roots
- Cut away lightly damaged tissue and use the remainder
Yellowing, kinked new leaves over a bearded root
What you are seeing is aster yellows, a phytoplasma that leafhoppers ferry from one plant to the next. The young inner leaves go yellow and twist out of shape while the outer ones blush red, and the root sours and sprouts a thicket of hairy side roots. No cure exists, so lift and destroy anything infected, then keep leafhoppers out with row cover and clear away the weed hosts close by.
Fix:
- Remove and destroy infected plants; there is no cure
Roots that come up bitter, woody, or stunted
Let the watering lurch between dry and drenched, or skip the thinning, and the root turns woody and sharp on the tongue. Seedlings packed shoulder to shoulder strangle one another into thin, braided strings, and a spell of heat while the roots are sizing pushes the bitterness further. Settle into a steady inch of water each week, space the survivors 2 to 3 inches (5 to 8 cm) apart, and time the crop for cool days.
Fix:
- Resume deep, even watering of about 2.5 cm (1 in) per week
- Thin remaining seedlings to 5-8 cm (2-3 in) apart
Roots that fork, twist, and grow crooked
A taproot heading straight down will buckle the moment it meets a stone, a hard clod, or packed ground, splitting and curling around whatever blocks it. Fresh manure or a heavy dose of nitrogen brings on the same forking and a fuzz of stray side roots, and root-knot nematodes can leave their mark as well. Dig the bed deep, lift out every stone first, and your next sowing comes up arrow-straight.
Fix:
- Harvest and use affected roots normally; flavor is unaffected by simple forking
- Deeply loosen and rake the bed, removing rocks and clods, before the next sowing
A green cap across the root's broad shoulders
Green shoulders show up where the crown of the root nudges out of the soil and the sun reaches it. The color sits in just the top inch or so, and below that the flesh stays sound once you slice the green off. Draw a little soil or mulch over those crowns while the roots are still fattening and the greening never begins.
Fix:
- Trim off the green portion before eating; the rest of the root is fine
Toxicity
Few garden plants come safer than a carrot. The root and the feathery tops are both food, with nothing poisonous to pets, livestock, or children. The single thing to mind is a large raw chunk that could choke a small mouth, so cut it down to size.
Safe for
People · Cats · Dogs · Horses · Rabbits · Livestock · Birds
Cats None
Nothing in a carrot harms a cat, and a pinch of cooked or grated raw root makes a harmless treat. Most cats shrug it off anyway, and the one real worry is a fat raw chunk lodging in the throat, so keep the pieces tiny.
Dogs None
A dog can crunch carrot raw or cooked without any worry. Plenty of them love a whole cold one as a low-calorie chew. Cut the big pieces down so they are gentle on the teeth.
Horses None
Carrots are a long-standing horse treat that does no harm in reasonable amounts. Split them into long strips instead of coin-shaped rounds, which can wedge in the throat, and keep portions small for an easy keeper.
Rabbits None
Offer a rabbit the leafy tops first, since the root carries a lot of sugar and suits only an occasional nibble. None of it is toxic, just rich, so be sparing with the orange part.
Livestock None
Cattle, goats, sheep, and pigs all relish carrots and their tops with no risk of poisoning. Bring them in slowly and chop them so a hungry animal does not gulp down a whole root and choke.
Birds None
Hens and parrots are welcome to carrot, and the bright flesh supplies plenty of vitamin A. Grate or chop it finely so smaller birds can handle it, and the feathery tops are fine for them too.
People None
Carrots are an everyday vegetable that everyone eats raw or cooked with nothing to guard against. Put away a great many over a long stretch and the skin may take on a faint orange cast, which is harmless and fades on its own.
No special handling required.
Varieties
There is a carrot shaped for whatever soil you have, from the long grocery-store roots to squat, broad-shouldered ones that brush off heavy ground. These are the names worth carrying in your head.
Danvers 126
A root that tapers to a point at roughly 6 to 7 inches (15 to 18 cm) and pushes through dense ground where the long slim types stall out.
Scarlet Nantes
The dependable backyard pick, its cylinder-shaped roots crisp and sweet, finishing in a blunt tip and excellent eaten straight from the row.
Imperator types
The long, slender, tapering roots stacked at the grocery store, which only run straight when the soil is deep, loose, and clear of stones.
Red Cored Chantenay
Short and broad-shouldered, built for shallow or heavy beds where a longer root would twist and falter.
Thumbelina
A round, marble-sized root happy in a pot or in the clay and stony beds that fork and stall the usual long carrots.
Companions
Carrots do best beside onion-family plants that throw off the carrot rust fly, and quick crops like radish that share the row while the slow seed germinates.
Plant near
onion: Onion-family plants interplanted with carrots are traditionally used to help deter carrot rust fly
leek: Like onions, leeks are used in extension companion guides to help confuse and deter carrot rust fly
radish: Fast-germinating radishes sown beside slow carrots mark rows and save space; cited as a space-saving intercrop by UMN Extension
lettuce: Shallow-rooted lettuce shares bed space without competing with the deep carrot taproot
Keep apart
dill: Some extension companion guides advise keeping dill away from maturing carrots; the related species may cross-react and dill can attract pests of the carrot family
How to propagate
Only one method makes more carrots: seed dropped straight into the ground, since that taproot will not put up with being lifted and moved.
SeedEasy
Early spring through midsummer, once soil is at least 7°C (45°F) · Germination in 1-3 weeks; roots reach usable size in about 60-80 days
Seed sown right into the bed is the only road to more carrots, because the taproot will not survive a move. Tuck the seed about a quarter inch (6 mm) under the surface from early spring through midsummer once the soil reaches 45°F (7°C), and keep that surface damp across the slow 1 to 3 weeks it takes the feathery first leaves to break through. After that the roots swell to eating size in roughly 60 to 80 days.
Myths
Carrots can be raised indoors and set out as seedlings, the way you handle tomatoes.
Lift a young carrot and you jostle the slim taproot right as it tries to plunge straight down, leaving you a forked or stubby root. Sow carrots in their final spot and thin them where they stand rather than shifting them about.
Pull every carrot before the first frost or the crop is wasted.
A light frost does no harm to fall carrots whatsoever. The chill converts starch into sugar, so the roots grow sweeter the longer they linger in cold soil, and across many regions you can keep lifting them deep into late fall.