How To Grow & Care For Carrot!

This ultimate guide on how to grow carrot will help in growing carrot. Know best practices from sowing of seeds to harvesting carrot in your garden. Carrot is a delicious as well as nutritious root vegetable that is quite easy to grow.

Soil plays a very important role in the growth of carrot. Therefore, selecting a good type of soil means a lot. Before knowing how to grow carrot, let’s get to know this amazing root vegetable a little more.

Introduction

Carrot is a root vegetable. According to the cultivar, colour varies. Carrot can be red, orange, yellow, white, purple, and black in colour. They are native to Europe and Southwestern Asia. According to the health magazine carrots have beta carotene. Inside our body these beta carotene gets converted into Vitamin-A.

Humans can consume tap root, stem, and leaves of the carrot plant. Moreover, consuming carrots also helps to reduce the risk of cancer disease. With such health benefits and delicious taste, carrots have a huge demand.

But what if you want to grow your own carrots. That too in your garden, well if this is the case then this article is definitely for you. Learn to grow your own carrots step by step.

How To Grow Carrot?

Growing carrot is not a very tough job. But, you will need to know about important aspects of growing carrot. Lack of proper knowledge can result in crop failure. That’s why it becomes very important to know growing season, potting mix, pot selection, propagation methods, etc.

Growing Season

Carrot plant does not love hot climate to grow. However depending on the cultivar growing season can vary. According to almanac.com you can grow carrots in plant hardiness zones 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, and 10.

The ideal temperature range for growing carrots is between 16 to 21 degrees Celsius. You can start sowing of seeds during mid summer to late summer season. Or you can also sow seeds during early spring season.

However, it mainly depends on the climate of your region. In India, you can start sowing seeds during monsoon or October to November.

Potting Mix

Carrot plant loves loose, well drained, sandy loam soil. Ideal soil pH range for growing carrots is 6.3 to 6.8 pH, i.e. nearly neutral. Avoid clayey or compact soil for growing this root vegetable. Soil plays a very important role in growing carrots.

That’s why if you want to grow in pot then you need to prepare a good potting mix. You can prepare potting mix with 50% garden soil + 30% any organic compost + 20% river sand. But if your garden soil is sandy loam then you can skip adding river sand.

After preparing potting mix, fill the growing container with the prepared potting mix. Make sure to avoid blockage of drainage holes at the bottom. You can put 3 to 4 pebbles around the holes for this purpose.

Selection of Pot

You can easily grow carrots in pots as well as in grow bags. But make that the depth of the growing container is at least 12 inches deep. Moreover 3 to 4 drainage holes should be present at the bottom. This will help in avoiding waterlogging problem in the growing container.

You can select the pot according to the diameter depending on the quantity. One single carrot plant can grow well in a 6 to 8 inch pot with minimum depth of 12 inches.

Propagation

You can easily grow carrots from seeds. Purchase high quality & disease resistant seeds from online stores or nearest plant nursery. Sow seeds at a depth of 1/2 to 1 inches. Maintain at least 2 to 3 inches space between two seeds.

Cover sown seeds with a thin layer of potting mix and place the pot in a sunny spot. Apply water gently and keep maintaining adequate moisture in the soil. Within 2 to 3 weeks you will notice new seedlings.

Carrot Plant Care

Once you are successful in germinating carrot seeds, the next step is to take care of your plants. Carrots doesn’t need much care but if you miss these points then your plant can get sad. Get to know about sunlight, watering, fertilizers requirement of your plant.

Moreover, learn to deal with pests and diseases that can destroy your plant.

Sunlight

Carrot plant loves sunlight. Place your pot at a place where your plant can receive at least 5 to 7 hours of daily bright sunlight. But it can also grow under partial shade sunlight.

Watering

Carrot plant loves little moist soil but it hates waterlogged soil. Keep the soil moist but do not add too much of water. Apply water whenever the top layer of the soil seems drying. Maintain good drainage to remove excess water.

Fertilizers

Avoid adding nitrogen rich fertilizers for growing carrot. As nitrogen promotes the vegetative growth of the plant. Hence, adding nitrogen rich fertilizer can result in increased leaf size and decreased root size.

However, adding fertilizer is not necessary if you have already added organic compost in potting mix. But, if you want to add compost then you can add banana peel fertilizer once after every 30 days. Or you can also add one teaspoon of wood ash instead of banana peel fertilizer.

Pest & Disease

If you not care well then your carrot plant can get heavily infested with pests and diseases. Your plant can get affected from pests such as root knot nematode, wireworms, flea beetles, carrot rust flies, etc. Whereas diseases like Alternaria leaf blight, Bacterial leaf blight, black canker, aster yellow disease, etc. can disturb your plant.

Companion planting can help to save your plant from pests. You can plant onion, lettuces, tomatoes or radishes nearby carrot plants. You can learn to grow these plants by reading the following guides.

READ MORE: HOW TO PLANT TOMATOES: THE COMPLETE GUIDE!

READ MORE: HOW TO GROW RADISH: FROM SOWING TO HARVESTING

You can also use neemastra or neem oil mix periodically once after every 14 days to prevent your plant from any pest and disease.

Harvesting

Depending on the cultivar, time to reach maturity varies. Generally carrot plant takes 90 to 120 days to become ready for harvesting. You can start harvesting by loosening the soil around the plant and then carefully pulling the complete plant out of the soil.

After harvesting you can clean the edible root with fresh water and enjoy the delicious self grown carrot from your garden.

Author’s Note

I guess you are not pretty much clear on how to grow carrot. If you have any idea, suggestions, or query then you can leave your comment below. You can connect with Agriculture Review on Facebook and Instagram.