Anyone grow carrots outdoors or indoors?

[MickinMD ★]

I've been seeing websites about growing fresh carrots all year inside in a sunny place or, as I would need, under grow lights.

I'm not sure that's less expensive than buying them in the store.  It doesn't seem to me that root veggies suffer from storage time as much as leafy stuff does, though one commenter on advantages of home grown veggies says fresh carrots are much better.

Anyway, I'll look into it more as my garden's growing season is closer to an end around September.

For outdoors, I bought Chantenay Red Cored Carrot seeds to plant outside this year.  They're stubby and only grow 5-6" long, but are great for heavy clay soil like I have and are said to taste great - they're also recommended for indoor growing in my first sentence's link.

I can plant 7 rows 6" apart with 15 carrots 2.5" apart in each row in a 3.5' x 3.5' space, pulling out 7 or more baby carrots per row - in between the other carrots - in about 35-45 days and 8 or less full size carrots in about 75 days.  That should provide all the carrots I need and more.

By staggering plantings of each row by a few weeks, I can be pulling half a row of carrots every few weeks.  I still have to research how late in June I can still plant them.

My carrot seeds get planted outside around May 1st, about 2 weeks before the last frost.

[Airehead]

Carrots from the grown and eaten that day are delicious. Not the same as those from the grocery store. 

[Ralphie ★]

I was never successful ootside. Either nematodes or some such nibbled at them or they were just too small. Same for celery - no bugs but too small and hard and bitter. 

[MickinMD ★]

2 hours ago, Ralphie said:

I was never successful ootside. Either nematodes or some such nibbled at them or they were just too small. Same for celery - no bugs but too small and hard and bitter. 

I'm not sure I'll be as successful with the carrots as I'm sure I will with tomatoes and peppers.

The 11' x 3.5' patch I'm adding to my garden space (between the air conditioning unit and the back corner of the house closest to the camera in the picture} is heavy clay, hard as a rock, hasn't been dug into since the house was built in 1948.  I stuck a spade into it last year when it was dry, put my weight on it, and it didn't go down an inch!  I may need a pick to break the soil up.  I'm growing Red Cored Chantenay Carrots that are a little stubby and grow 5-6" long and are said to be the best for heavy clay soils. 

I have 3 big 50 qt. bags of Miracle Gro Garden Soil With Compost to mix in with it.  It will be about 2 inches thick on top of the clay soil before I mix it 6-8" into the soil with a tiller and I hope it loosens it a little.   I used 7 bags in my tomato/pepper patch (dug-up on right of picture) last year and had very productive plants.  After the super results last year, I'm adding an 8-8-8 organic fertilizer to the garden this year, just $13.50 and enough for me to do 2 applications about 8 weeks apart.

The 3.5 ft. is how far the air conditioning unit sticks out from the house (which faces SSE so plenty of sun) and the back house corner close to the camera is 11 feet from the from the AC unit.  That's what I'm digging and tilling for carrots and whatever else floats my boat (bush beans?, herbs? longer keeper tomatoes?) opposite my tomato and pepper plants (patch dug up on right), which will be 1.5 ft. longer this year (21.5' x 6') and hold, center-to-center, 14 tomato plants/cages 3' apart and 8 sweet peppers 18" apart.

[Further]

My soil is heavy clay also, I’ve grown carrots but they didn’t do well. I have added a lot of organic matter to the soil but it takes a long time to really change the soil structure.

But hey it’s a hobby, not like you lose anything if they don’t grow. Just have fun, keep trying and you learn what works for you and what you enjoy 

[Ralphie ★]

I once saw a picture of harvested carrots laying in the field in California and it amazed me how loose the soil must be to allow those monsters to grow.

[smudge ★]

Nope, nope, nope. No fertilizer for carrots unless you want funky looking carrots. Seriously, they will have legs and arms and be weird. They will look fun but the usability is awkward. You would be better off getting a deep, decorative container and fill it with loose, sandy soil blend. NOT Miracle Grow garden soil.

If the soil is that horrible, you could also do raised beds.

And get seeds something like Tendersweet or Lady Fingers. Those stubby Nantes type carrots are better for livestock.

[smudge ★]

7 hours ago, Airehead said:

Carrots from the grown and eaten that day are delicious. Not the same as those from the grocery store. 

Much more flavorful than store-bought carrots. To keep them, they need a little moisture. Stick em in a plastic bag with a damp paper towel. Keep in the fridge.

[Further]

A buddy gave up on in ground and built a raised bed. He says the carrots are perfect, but the commercial soil to fill the  bed cost enough to buy carrots for a year or two.

[Dirtyhip]

Hi Dr. Mick. We grow carrots in a raised bed outside. We harvest little by little by thinning and leave some of  them in the ground until well after first frost. We have never tried growing them indoors to harvest. Carrots and beets seemed very easy to grow but you have to really keep the soil wet here to germinate. It gets so dry here that seeding can be difficult. It’s really windy on the hill where my house sits so that doesn’t help.

we did start a bunch of warm veggies inside to transplant after last frost but little knots from the soil drove us bonkers. I was happy to get them all out of the house. Those little bugs sometimes come from soil matter.  We don’t bother with much indoor plants except for a few house plants. I have a bonsai lemon tree that I really love. It produces lemons for us.  It almost died last year when I left it for too long. I had to cut it way back and it seems happy again. Whew! 
 

[Ralphie ★]

5 hours ago, Dirtyhip said:

I have a bonsai lemon tree that I really love. It produces lemons for us.  It almost died last year when I left it for too long. I had to cut it way back and it seems happy again. Whew! 

Wow, very cool!  I had a bonsai juniper for a while that I loved but that was when I lived in an apartment and I could never give it a proper winter dormant period so it eventually died. I’d love to get another bonsai. I kept trying to start one with one of the millions of maple saplings we get in the spring but I never stuck with it long enough. 

[Parsnip Totin Jack ★]

Tried growing them last spring from seed. Beets too. I have raised garden beds filled with soil and compost from bags. The seeds grew beautiful greens but not much underneath; all hat and no cattle carrots. 

[TrentonMakes]

We have grown carrots in our small backyard garden for the past few summers.  They are probably the thing that grows the best out there.  But a bag of carrots is so cheap, I too wonder if it's worth the effort, and I might use that space for something else this year.

[Dirtyhip]

Carrots are just a part of a healthy garden rotation here.  They sure are cheap, but nothing in the store compares to the taste of what I can produce.  Baby carrots in the store are terrible.  The babies I get from thinning.    Garlic is just too easy.  I never buy it anymore. Even green onions can be super easy.  I replant the butts if I do buy them.  They eventually turn to bulb onions and the bees dig the blooms and then I get seeds for yet more green onions.  Nothing gets wasted. 

Pickled beets last so long and they are so tasty and good for you. 

Tomatoes here are hard.  We have stopped planting them so much.  There are other fruits that will be good in that valuable space, like sweet potaoes, cucumbers, tomatillo, squash etc. 

Really, this is just a fun hobby and I am not fooling myslf that I save much money doing this.  It's mostly just for the bees and the smiles. 

[Razors Edge ★]

23 hours ago, MickinMD said:

though one commenter on advantages of home grown veggies says fresh carrots are much better.

Fresh carrots vs almost any LGS bought carrots taste 50x better.  And 1,000x better than "baby" carrots.

[smudge ★]

I love them so much I'm going to plant them this summer now that I will have a lot of time on my hands. Mmmmmmm.... home grown carrots.

[MickinMD ★]

14 minutes ago, Razors Edge said:

Fresh carrots vs almost any LGS bought carrots taste 50x better.  And 1,000x better than "baby" carrots.

Thanks!  I can't wait to grow them outside and, if they taste so good, I'll grow them inside on my heated back porch when it's too cold for outside since I've got that 2-shelf, micro-greenhouse setup. I just need to buy a couple 8" deep plastic trays.

[MickinMD ★]

16 hours ago, smudge said:

Nope, nope, nope. No fertilizer for carrots unless you want funky looking carrots. Seriously, they will have legs and arms and be weird. They will look fun but the usability is awkward. You would be better off getting a deep, decorative container and fill it with loose, sandy soil blend. NOT Miracle Grow garden soil.

If the soil is that horrible, you could also do raised beds.

And get seeds something like Tendersweet or Lady Fingers. Those stubby Nantes type carrots are better for livestock.

Thanks for the suggestions!  I may try a raised bed in that 3.5 x 11 foot area if this year's attempt doesn't work well.

I'm going to try Red Cored Chantenay because they're recommended for heavy clay soil.  I tried carrots in that soil when I was young and it was my parents' house and they didn't do much, though radishes did ok.  Back then, I didn't have today's wealth of Internet and knowledgeable people like you.  I had a couple books like Dick Raymond's excellent The Joy of Gardening.  He had a TV show sponsored by Troy-Bilt Tillers back then.  I got me started on growing stuff from seeds, but didn't have enough details for things like growing root veggies in heavy clay soil.

[12string]

Too many rocks here.  No carrots