How to germinate and grow carrots. Carrots are notoriously difficult to germinate which is why so many people think they're hard to grow. They're not, they're just hard to germinate.
So what's with the picture of the carrot cake? It all ties in to germinating carrots. My former fella's favourite birthday cake was carrot cake with a cream cheese icing. It's what his mother used to make him.
Years ago my plan was to grow all the carrots I needed to make the cake for his birthday. An ambitious plan that went horribly, horribly wrong.
Why?
Carrots are a bitch to germinate. Also, the year I was planning to do this, the fella ran away and I never heard from him again until a week later when I texted him a photo of me pirouetting his things into the dump.
Carrot germination is sporadic at best if you don't take certain precautions. A clump will grow and then nothing else, then a month later a few more might sprout. Or sometimes they just don't sprout at all and you hate them.
You can fix your relationship with germinating carrots. Here's how.
How to Germinate Carrots
Carrots like 2 things to germinate. Darkness and moisture.
Like mould. Or a yeast infection. If they don't have either of these things even for a day, their germination rate can drop by 50%.
One of the easiest ways to increase your carrot germination rate is to pre-sprout your seeds by "planting" them on a wet paper towel.
- You need squares of cardboard, carrot seeds, and paper towels.
- Place a very damp paper towel on a piece of cardboard (or anything else sturdy, the cardboard is just to keep the seeds stable).
- Place your carrot seeds 2 inches apart across the whole paper towel until it's covered. You'll plant about 20-25 seeds per paper towel.* Since I plant a lot of carrot varieties, I label each board to know what's what.
- Cover with another wet paper towel. Continue doing this with all of your seeds.
- Stack the boards up and place the entire stack in a plastic bag and put it in a dark area.
- Then wait.
- You can also just scatter the hell out of the carrot seeds if you want to go a bit rogue.
How to Germinate Carrots
How to help guarantee germination with carrot seeds.
Materials
- Carrot seeds
- cardboard
- paper towels
- water
- plastic bag
Instructions
- You need squares of cardboard, carrot seeds, and paper towels.
- Place a very damp paper towel on a piece of cardboard (or anything else sturdy).
- Place your carrot seeds 2 inches apart across the whole paper towel until it’s covered. You’ll plant about 20-25 seeds per paper towel. Since I plant a lot of carrot varieties, I label each board to know what’s what.
- Cover with another wet paper towel. Continue doing this with all of your seeds.
- Stack the boards up and place the entire stack in a plastic bag and put it in a dark area.
- Then wait.
In 7 - 10 days you can check to see if anything's going on in there.
As soon as the seeds have germinated and have a tiny root on them you can take the piece of cardboard and paper towel outside. Carefully slip the paper towel off of the cardboard and onto your garden soil. Cover with a scant ¼" or less of compost or vermiculite so the seeds and paper towel don't blow away or get eaten by whatever eats things in your particular garden.
How to Germinate and Grow Carrots in the Field
- Press seeds in wet/damp soil. (you can use your hand or a board and mallet like I am in the photo to press the seeds into the soil) Soil contact is important.
- Cover the rows of seeds with wood boards.
- Lift the boards after a week to see if any action is happening. Once you see seeds sprouting, you can remove the boards and remember to keep the area watered.
Lately, over the past 5 years or so, I've been planting my carrots in the field. One way to improve your carrot germination a lot is to oversow your seeds into wet soil and cover them with boards.
Covering your carrot seeds with boards will keep the seeds in contact with the damp soil, keep them dark AND prevent anything from eating them.
(most people grow them wrong)
When to Plant Carrots
Plant carrot seeds 2-4 weeks before your first frost-free date. This will give you a summer harvest.
Plant carrot seeds 10-12 weeks before your first frost. This will give you a late fall harvest.
This method doesn't give you as good of a germination rate as pre-sprouting, but it's perfectly acceptable.
Remember to oversow! That'll improve your chances at getting a good harvest.
In a couple of months you'll be looking down at a ferny swath of carrots.
No field? No problem.
Grow your carrots in buckets.
A couple of years ago when we were allowed to roam free I toured the University of Guelph's kitchen garden where they grew a lot of their produce in leftover muffin mix buckets. Carrots, tomatoes, corn, okra ... all grown in buckets.
Just remember to drill some drainage holes into the bottom and you have a perfect container for carrots.
That birthday cake for the man that ran away? I still made it. It was the one you saw at the top of the post. I froze a piece of it to eat on the 10th anniversary of my dump run.
This post was originally written 40 billion years ago almost before carrots were invented. It was completely rewritten with new photos for 2021.
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hey
I've done 50+ varieties of plants using the above method. I'd double/triple the lower layer of paper towel to hold more moisture. One on top below the plastic. Different seeds have different reactions to different moisture levels. test
hey
works great for pot too. Use a 2" deep tray covered w/ plastic wrap & a cheesy paper towel above & below, NEVER dry, & the sprouts will arise w/ a green leaf stalk. Then finger a small hole in potting soil equal to the length of the white root, set the root in the hole & softly pack soil around it & lightly wet today. & each day. Perhaps twice a day. Perhaps according to your environment keep the green leaf seedlings under plastic for a week or so. If they start getting taller transplant.
Anna
I tried the homemade seeds tapes last year (covered area w/ wet burlap till they popped), and they were a great success, but I did notice they took a couple weeks longer to germinate. The directed-sowed ones popped a lot quicker, but they required thinning. This year, direct-sowing all of them, covering w/a couple layers of burlap...in raised beds you can plant a lot more densely...seed tape placed very close together gets tricky.
On a parsnip note, read somewhere that you should not plant carrots, parsnips, celery or parlsey near each other -- all in the same family.
Anemone
Ahoy Karen...wazzzup? So I tried it and Yayyyy...they all germinated...thanks. Looking forward to more tips.
andrea meyers
what I really want to know....is carrot cake a "true cake"?
Anemone
Thank you for this. From what I planted earlier April (OMG), I finally started to see some true leaves some days ago. But half of what I planted though. Anyway... I am gonna try this tomorrow since I have a few SF remaining. This is the first year I am trying carrots. AND the first year of planting potatoes and lots of other plants because of....Karen. Yea... You!
Call Me Patty
I always planted my carrot seeds mixed with radish seeds, and have never had a problem. The radishes are always ready to pick way before the carrots are ready, and so leave lots of room for the carrots to grow. And always rotate where you grow the carrots from year to year.
Amber
Now I love growing stuff too, I really really do. But what caught my eye here (and my stomach) is the reference to your carrot cake. With frosting. Now I'm hungry.
Will you post a recipe? I grew up with Carrot Cake as the only potentially healthy version of cake in a macrobiotic hippy household. And I will always crave it as a way to ease the jealousy of seeing other kids with electric-blue and hyper-pink "food".
Lindsey R.
Now you have ruined me!! in my ignorance, I have planted carrot seeds for the past 2 years without a care in the world, and have ended up with a bounty of carrots (although I have not planted as many as you have above). Now, I suspect all my future seeds will be bitchy little seeds that will require all this effort!!
Laura
We planted carrot, radish and beet seed tapes about a week ago, directly into the garden, covered in dirt, not compost or a board. The dirt makes it dark enough. Everything except a short foot or so of the carrots has already sprouted up through the dirt.
Jennifer
Dear Karen: I planted Cubit's (per your recommendation because you're my hero) Colorful Carrot Mix seeds this year about the first or second week of May (in Michigan). I made a little trench, mixed the seeds with a bit of sand, and carefully sprinkled the seed/sand mixture in my trench. I then covered with dirt about 1/4 inch deep and a very, little bit of straw on top. I watered daily, and those little babies popped right up. No baking or glue.
Sara
Thank god it's not just me and my crappy clay soil or my inconsistent watering or whatever cause of the week! I haven't had luck with my carrots either and was about to give up on them. I'll have to try out this method too. Thank you!
Amanda Steinberg
Hi!
Your crappy, clay soil is definitely at fault. Add sand, lots of sand. If carrot roots can't grow straight down then they will become a demented corckscrew or just stunted. I think the ratio we used at school (come on brain) was 90% sand, 5% water retainer and the other 5% was native soil.
Good luck!
Shelly
Gees...I would never have guessed, by the millions of tiny frilly carrot tops that I had to weed around every summer in my father's garden, that carrots were so darn finicky. Nothing like sitting in the dirt pulling tiny blades of weeds when you'd rather be outside doing ANYTHING else. Of course, now, I would LOVE to be weeding carrots rather than cleaning toilets and some of the other really crappy jobs that moms/wives have to do...
Erin
Thanks for the great post! I have difficulty with carrots as well. I usually end up sowing a row every week in the hopes that I will remember to water or get lucky with rainy weather. I am definitely going to try this!
I usually leave my carrots in the ground until the "January thaw" - they really get sweet in the cold. Just cover them with mulch to keep the ground from freezing.
I had two rows of carrots overwinter under floating row cover this winter. I seeded them in August and they just didn't get big enough to pull, so we left them. I'm not sure if they'll size up or just shoot a flower stalk when it warms up. Life's an experiment.
allyson
You know what's weird? We had a brutally bad carrot crop last year - a few tiny little things (that's not the weird part). This spring, when hubby went out to prep the gardens for the season, he found a carrot, about 2" long growing in the cold, just finished winter garden. Lovely fresh green top, orange flesh. Bizarre.
Karen
Allyson - I found a couple of carrots this spring too. It's actually the best way to store them for the winter. Just leave them in the ground! They don't rot, don't go soft and are perfect. If I have enough this year for saving that's what I'm going to do. ~ karen!
Shauna
I love that you use a tape measure! I'm such a haphazard gardener, planting seeds all willy nilly. I guess I'm lucky to live where I do because you can be a lazy gardener and still get food here. We even have two rogue tomato plants that sprouted this year from the tomatoes I used to throw on the ground for the chickens. I've had to jerry rig hardware wire around them to keep the chickens from eating them, but they're huge now and I'm just waiting for some maters;)
Karen
Shauna - The only reason I'm so precise with my plantings is because I'm crazy. ~ karen!
Barbie
.....I am SO behind on my carrots .... amongst other things in the garden. I want to try this! Thanks Karen, your timing is perfect.
Molly
I am sitting here counting my carrot blessings because I've never had trouble getting them to sprout. I grow my carrots in a big half wine barrel--I fill it with loose, rich soil, put the seed down, cover it loosely with a bit more soil and then cover the barrel with mesh until they are big enough to withstand critters who try to bury their stash. They need very gentle water twice a day until the seeds are established.
Sera
Oh, and when it comes time to make carrot cake, I posted the best carrot cake recipe ever on my blog. It has mascarpone lime frosting! I can attest that my mom then promptly made cupcakes out of the recipe and my step-dad hasn't stopped bugging her to make more.
Karen
The lime sounds like a GREAT idea. I'll have a look. ~ karen!
Nancy Blue Moon
This method seems quite easy to me..what work is it to wet some paper towels, put seeds on them cover them and put them a plastic bag..if it works (and it did) it seems a fairly easy way to get them started..I hope they do as well in the ground..