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As healthy as they are tasty, carrots are chock-full of beta carotene, fiber, vitamin A and
more—that means plenty of health benefits.

Phase One: Planting

Carrots are a great starter vegetable. In early Spring, you’ll want to get an outdoor
seedbed ready by tilling and weeding your soil in preparation for planting.

  1. Try to avoid planting in rocky or dense soil, as your carrots need a little wiggle room to
    grow. Toss out any rocks or debris you find.
  2. Loosened soil also helps with drainage, AKA great carrots!
  3. Loosen to a depth of 12” and add compost or sand for even better soil!


Phase Two: Seedlings

You’ve planted your carrots—nice work. Next step, water, water, water!

  1. Carrot seeds are tough, and that means they need to drink extra water—maybe a lot of
    extra water—compared to other seeds.
  2. To make sure your seeds aren’t going thirsty, check in on them daily—if your soil feels
    dry, pour up!
  3. As long as you keep up the watering, expect sprouts to make an appearance about 1-3
    weeks after planting.


Phase 3: Growing

Remember what we said about wiggle room for your carrots? They have about eight more
weeks to grow after sprouting, so like any teenager, give them their space.

  1. Make sure carrots have about 1.5”-2” of space between them.
  2. Be gentle—don’t tug on your carrots and wreck that lovely soil. Just give them a
    trim near the sprout to thin them.
  3. You can always pull out a Test Carrot (official farming term) and check to see if they’re
    getting close to maturity.

Phase Four: Harvest

Ladies, gentleman, farmers: The time has come…It’s harvest day! You can dig them all up
now or consider leaving some a little longer to taste-test which you prefer.

  1. Harvest using a garden fork and dig down to carefully lift the roots from the ground, or
    gently pull them from the soil.
  2. Cut the tops off, about 1⁄4 – 1⁄2″ above the root shoulders, and give them a shake to get
    the dirt off.
  3. Avoid cutting the root ends or root hairs.
  4. You can store your carrots with some bits of soil clinging to them (au naturel) or give
    them a bath and air dry before storing.
  5. Simply line up similarly sized carrots in a row and tuck them into a freezer bag before
    putting them in your fridge’s crisper.