Growing Carrots from Seeds

Are you interested in growing carrots from seeds? Do you want to eat fresh carrots from your own garden? Have you tried to grow carrots from seeds before and failed? I have tried several times to grow carrots from seeds and have also failed several times. That has made me lose heart and not want to grow them anymore. The carrot seeds take so long to grow, and if they do not show up, it feels like you have used all of this space in your garden for nothing. Therefore, if you have felt like this, I am here to help you because I have been there too!

In this blog post, I will share with you what has worked for me and what hasn’t. I will be honest with you and tell you all the details. Keep reading, and I hope you will be inspired. Happy gardening to you all!

Why Grow Carrots from Seeds?

There is something about eating fresh from your own vegetable garden. For the organic matter, you do not have to worry because you are the master of your garden, and you know exactly what is in and what is not in your food! For me, the very best carrots that I have eaten are the fresh ones. The fresh carrots from the garden taste so sweet!

They are easy to grow if you follow the rules! Haha! Since I have failed to grow carrots from seeds several times, I know that it can be hard. On the other hand, if you know how to do it and follow the rules, you will find it easy and be successful at it too!

Something I am used to saying to my kids is this: “It is only hard until you know it,” which means that it is only hard until you have learned how to do it and practiced it, and then suddenly the hard is not hard anymore. Now it is easy and fun! So do not lose heart if you have failed several times like me, and definitely do not give up! Someday, you will be teaching others how to do it!

When to Grow Carrots from Seeds

Carrot seeds take a few weeks to grow before you can actually see the plant emerge from the soil. You will need to start early enough to get a good harvest. Be mindful of the soil temperatures, though, since carrot seeds need warm soil to grow. The frost risk needs to be over, and the soil needs to be loose. If you start early enough, you might get the chance to sow seeds one more time during the summertime for a second harvest. I have not tried that, though, so make it your own experience and let me know how it went! Anyway, the best time to grow your carrots from seeds is in the early spring in order to enjoy the harvest in summer and in late summer.

How to Grow Carrots from Seeds

First, you need to prepare the garden bed. The darker the soil, the better. You will need fertile and loose soil in order for the seeds to grow well. Also, be mindful of having the soil at an even height so that watering does not cause parts of the soil to run down and drag seeds with it, thus destroying parts of the crop. This has happened several times with my raised bed carrot gardening. Since the water ran down in some places, no carrots came up. At the same time, where the water pooled, no carrots came up either. Therefore, pay attention to the lay of the planting area where you sow carrot seeds. I recommend using a garden fork for smooth working!

When the soil is ready, have your seed packet ready before you make furrows that are about one cm deep. Water the furrows before you sow the seeds, and then pour the seeds into one hand and sprinkle with the other evenly over the entire row that you have prepared. Cover with new soil and water again, and voila, you now have a row of carrots planted in your garden!

The carrot plants need full sun and hot weather combined with daily watering in order to grow well. Remember to stop for a while, contemplate, and enjoy your work! Give yourself time to pause and enjoy this season of the year! In real life, there is not always sunny weather, and certainly not here in Sweden, where I grow my food. Therefore, my experience is that carrots thrive well in cooler weather too.

This summer I tried a Chinese method, which was to grow vegetables very, very close to each other. The mindset is to try to grow as much in as little space as you can. As long as the plant gets enough nutrients and water, it will be fine. Therefore, I grew carrots in rows that were quite close to each other, and then I grew either spinach or radishes in between because they grow fast and the carrots grow slow. It turned out to be a great method, and I can highly recommend it. 

As the plants grow, you harvest from the fast-growing plants while the carrots slowly grow bigger and bigger. In that way, it does not feel that you are wasting any space, and you can harvest from a much smaller space. It is also very nice not to have to water such large areas.

Pre-Growing or Not

It is not recommended to pre-grow carrots. This year, I decided to try anyway since I was a bit late starting my carrot gardening and the carrot beds were not ready in time. Since carrots need a long time to grow, I wanted to try planting carrots using the pre-growing method. I sowed the seeds in small boxes and placed them on the veranda for a few weeks before I transplanted them to the garden, where my husband and I had prepared the vegetable garden.

To my surprise, it seemed like transplanting carrot plants worked without any problem. When the carrot tops had grown about 2 cm from the soil, I transplanted the little carrots into the garden. Some of the plants I transplanted one by one, others I transplanted many together in a piece of soil. I mixed the garden soil with the existing soil.

This method also worked for radish seeds and parsnips. I would not recommend this method, though, since it is very time-consuming and tiring to transplant one plant at a time to your vegetable garden. For me, I only tried it for quicker growth.

Therefore, if you want to do it the easiest way, I would recommend you to sow the carrot seeds directly in the vegetable garden, to the prepared beds, in order to get your homegrown carrots.

Tips and Tricks for Growing Carrots from Seeds

The secret I learned this summer from a friend, was that I need to water daily! Yes, daily! In order for the seeds to grow, you have to water daily. The seeds and carrot sprouts are sensitive to drought. Therefore, you need to be mindful of dry weather.

Check the weather report to know how and when you should water your baby carrots! If I know that it will rain later one day, I will not water my garden that day but wait until the rain comes. Use the weather to help you and find out ways to do your gardening with less work and worries.

In the beginning, I also used fiber cloth to cover the soil surface where I had sowed my carrot seeds. Using a fiber cloth is a good idea when growing carrots in early spring. The seeds grow faster, and the carrot seedlings are protected against pests.

Two months after sowing, you can begin to check the top of the root that is close to the surface of the soil. You will see your orange carrots and maybe harvest some of them. If they are growing too close to each other, you will have to thin out, which means you will have to harvest some of the carrots in order for others to grow big. The carrots need some space, and you will need to provide them enough space to grow. If they have space around them, there is no need to thin out.

Another trick that worked really well for me was growing carrots in soil blended with sand from the seashore. The sandier soils seem to serve the carrots exceptionally well! When I grew these carrots, it was several years ago (I think maybe fourteen years ago… time flies!), and it was in Iceland. There I grew carrots in prepared raised beds with plastic tops in bows over the beds. The carrots that I ate from this bed were absolutely amazing! I have not tasted any carrots more tasty than those I tasted there!

My experience is that plants love fertilization from the seashore. It is like they grow better with nutrients from the sea! I am sorry to say, though, that in Sweden, we live a long distance from the sea, which makes it very difficult for us to get material from the seashore. Therefore, we have to grow our vegetables in other ways, and that is okay! I have been using grass clippings, for example, as garden mulch, which has been a great way to fertilize, inhibit the growth of weeds, and keep the moisture down in the bed.

As for me, I love to work in the garden when it does not have to be too demanding and hard, yet gives me a good and satisfying harvest!

Harvesting

You will get to harvest carrots when they have grown to full size. Basically, you can harvest anytime, but you will get the size of the carrot depending on how long it has grown. Before you harvest the carrots, check the base of the plants to get an idea about the size of the carrot. Is it the size of your finger? If you pull up the carrot, I do not recommend that you put it back if you are unhappy with the size because it takes a while for the roots to settle. Therefore, I recommend you enjoy and taste the carrot, but only after you have washed it, of course!

How We Use Carrots

The kids love eating the carrots fresh! Also, carrot sticks with peanut butter are a hit! It is a perfect snack for the kids. Shredded carrots are also a favorite. Sprinkling some lemon and a handful of raisins is also very tasty with shredded carrots.

Baked carrot sticks in olive oil, sprinkled with salt, is something we eat every now and then in combination with other oven-baked vegetables. Every now and then, I also make carrot and sweet potato soup, which is very tasty. In other words, I hope you will enjoy your harvest and the process of working in your garden!