Growing carrots in 5 inches of soil!

If you select the correct variety for shallow soils like Burpee's Short and Sweet – carrots can be easily grown just about anywhere! This 70 gram specimen was harvested on this posting date for steaming as part of a mix of carrots and broccoli for my dinner.

Carrots are extremely nutritious to eat as one 10 year study revealed the effects of eating this vegetable on heart disease;

“We are fortunate to have the results of a new 10-year study from the Netherlands about carrot intake and risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD)—and those results are fascinating. Intake of fruits and vegetables in the study was categorized by color and focused on four color categories: green, orange/yellow, red/purple, and white. Out of these four categories, orange/yellow (and in particular, foods with deeper shades of orange and yellow) emerged as most protective against CVD. And even more striking, carrots were determined to be the most prominent member of this dark orange/yellow food category. Participants who had the least carrot intake had the least amount of CVD risk reduction, even though they still received risk-reducing benefits from their carrot intake. However, participants who ate at least 25 more grams of carrots (with 25 grams being less than one-quarter of a cup) had a significantly lower risk of CVD. And the groups of participants who ate 50- or 75-grams more had an even more greatly reduced risk of CVD! We're not sure how any study could better demonstrate how easy it can be to lower disease risk by making a food like carrot part of the everyday diet in such achievable amounts.”

Of course, some of the carrot went into a nice romaine salad creation....

Today’s menu will be carrots, onions and cabbage!

It’s about that time of the year when the heat of the day makes me want to hole up inside and scrounge my lunch out of whatever is available. This generally includes a trip or two to the fridge and then a glance out the window to see if there is anything growing in the garden that might be worth eating.

Today I was lucky in finding a small group of onions that never got very large. I brought these inside and added them to some carrots and a small leftover wedge of cabbage. After peeling the carrots and cutting them into equal sized chunks, I tossed everything into my steamer. After about fifteen minutes, I had the making of a pretty good meal. In the back of the cupboard I also found a can of cut green beans that got nuked in the microwave and voila! Lunch vegetarian style! This filling meal totaled just over a hundred calories including two pats of butter!

Planting Carrot Seed

Of all the vegetable seeds I’ve had the most trouble with in the past, carrots are right up close to the top of the list. They are very tiny, need to be planted close to the surface where they can dry out and are difficult to space evenly. But, once they get to growing up in size they are a little worry crop that can be left in the ground all winter and still be harvestable in the spring. It’s the getting them to germinate thing that can be a challenge.

What has worked well for my raised bed garden is the proper selection of variety (I have a heavy soil garden and soil will choose a short variety like Short n Sweet from Burpee Seed). After making a trench in the bed, I fill this with a good potting mix like Miracle Gro Potting Mix available at stores like the Home Depot. I then spread the seeds by hand as evenly as possible along the trench. I usually try for one seed every two inches or so. After that trying task is done I will add a little more potting soil over the top and will then pat it down. Finally I will take whatever paper I can find (newspaper works great) and will cut it into strips that are then laid length wise along the trench. The paper will act to help keep the seeds moist while still allowing some sunlight in. Next, I water the whole affair and then make sure to check the area daily to insure it stays damp. I also make it a point to plant some radish seeds as marker plants. That’s it! In about a week or so if you peak under the paper, you will hopefully see some tiny carrot seedlings poking up among the much larger radishes that germinated rather quickly. (The radish seedlings work great at holding the paper up off the ground so the tiny carrot seeds can have space to grow). Once I know I have achieved good germination, I go ahead and remove the paper. (If the sky is clear, I will sometimes wait for a cloudy or rainy day to do this).

The Short n Sweet carrots are not that big, but they do grow well in tough soil and taste just marvelous.

Carrots have been a real surprise for me!

Carrots have proven to a real surprise to me this last year. I’d never planted them before because I’d heard the tiny seeds were finicky and difficult to germinate. I also figured the soil had to be super soft and free of rocks for the roots to grow into straight and true carrots. Well, that turned out to be a load of bunk. Now true, I planted a variety called Short and Sweet which is a variety that is meant for heavier soils and also true, I did not always get the honkers you see in the grocery store. But, so what! I have been overjoyed with two facts. One, they are super easy to grow. And, once they do germinate they are a breeze to car for. (More like weeds than anything else). In order to beat the germination deal, I simply waited for a week in the spring when I knew it was forecast to be overcast and rainy. I then planted the seeds being careful to give them good spacing. I then covered the soil where they were shallowly planted with a bit of damp newspaper. Voila, I was done! A week later when I peeked under the paper, here are all these little dudes poking up out of the soil. From that point on, I just made sure to keep them watered and before I knew it, that fall I had more carrots than I could eat! Oh, and number two! I found that carrots over winter very nice in the soil as you can see in the pictures. They taste fantastic and they are a nice surprise when nothing else is growing yet.

Nutrition: In order below is the description, grams weight, ounces, raw calories, calories from fat, sodium, cholesterol and carbohydrates from the serving you see pictured.


Carrots 123 4.3 50.4 2.0 84.7 0.0 11.7