Description
PARIS MARKET CARROT (Daucus carota) is a popular 19th Century French heirloom. The small nearly perfectly round deeply red-orange roots provide a delightful offering at market and when included in your stews and soups. This is a great choice if your garden soil does not support long roots. Also a good choice for container growing. Best way to produce those beautiful uniform round roots is to regularly use a drip line. Did you know that an easy way to pull carrots is to first push the top of the carrot into the soil then pull. This simple action breaks the many fine roots along its body that holds it in the ground and makes extraction with greenery intact much easier. 55-60 days. 100 seeds.
GROWING TIPS: Carrots have a very tiny seed and high germination. Thinning can disturb the root structure, so you will achieve the best results by adequately spacing seeds when initially planted and re-sow to fill any gaps (which will give you a nicely staggered crop). Some people mix the fine seeds with sand and then sow to achieve this spacing. Others mix the carrot seeds with radish seed. The radishes will mature quickly. Whatever your method, carrots require very fine soil down to a depth beyond their mature size. Many prepare carrot "boxes" using sand and garden soil that has been sifted to remove any stones or other particles that might cause the root to misform or split.
USE TIP: The beautiful feathery foliage from your mature carrots is a good addition to the compost pile -- but first use them in your vase. They make a delightful and elegant filler!