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~ CARROT Seeds ~ Carrots are pretty easy - they're ready in about 4 or 5 months. You sow them outside several times from spring to mid-summer. ( = ) They can also be sown early under cover, or late outside for baby carrots in autumn. ( = )   'Giant Red' Dark Orange Carrot Despite the name, this is not truly deep red. However, the vigour and flavour of this Italian variety are terrific - large carrots grow quickly, with big, orange pointy roots. The flesh is sweet without bitterness, while still retaining a good 'carrotty' flavour, and the core is much reduced. Great both cooked and raw. Quick, large table carrot . Young specimen in photo doesn't do it credit - they get MUCH bigger! Order CtGR - About 350 seed £1.59 'Jaune Obtuse de Doubs' Yellow Carrot Most people don't realise that orange carrots are a modern invention. Carrots naturally come in a range of colours - white and yellow from Europe, and purple from the Middle East where agriculture originated about 11000 years ago. (The orange ones are actually a recent cross between the groups in the past couple of hundred years. ) Anyways, the point is that yellow is a perfectly sensible colour for a carrot! This old traditional French variety has yellow roots with blunt ("obtuse") tips that are easy to dig up with no risk of snapping, and a good strong (but sweet) carrot taste. Yellow carrots look great sliced or grated in salads, and they stay yellow when cooked. Traditional yellow carrot , good flavour. Order CtJO - about 350 seed £1.53 "I wanted to let you know how pleased I've been over the last two years with the yellow carrot Jaune Obtuse de Doubs. It has grown very well on my south Birmingham allotment . It seems to be less susceptible to root fly, Whether this is because it has a less 'carroty' smell to attract them, or because the root fly are distracted by the orange carrot planted nearby, I'm not sure."  - Suzy Hughes   "I’m just eating one of the first of my Jaune Obtuse de Doubs carrots, and I felt moved to email you to say how tasty it is. Strong carroty flavour, but sweet too, just as you say on your site, and so much nicer than the mass-produced F1 hybrid (I think) I got from 'Xxxx & Xxxx' last year. The main thing I wanted to say, though, is how well they have grown. " - Julia Brown   'Blanc a Collet Vert' White & Green Carrot This is a traditional variety from Belgium about 200 years ago.  Carrots were originally white or purple – the orange ones are a recent invention. This one is white, and the top inch or so sticks up out of the soil, turning green, so they are bicolour when pulled up. White, green tops, long and pointy. Order CtBC - about 350 seed £1.09 ' Lisse de Meaux' Long Carrot - SWEET , GOOD FOR STORAGE OVERWINTER Here's a medium long orange carrot with rounded tips. We like the flesh which is particularly tasty and sweet, and gets sweeter after lifting. It is a late-season carrot, best planted for a maincrop, and we chose it for its very long-keeping qualities once harvested. Good keeper, maincrop. Order CtLM - about 350 seed £1.54 D'Eysines Carrot VERY FAT This is a good productive old French variety , of the "half-long Nantes" type, that makes nice orange roots, more cylindrical than the others we have. It has been grown for many years in the region around Bordeaux. They are a good orange colour throughout, including the core, with a good flavour and medium-sweet taste. Early in the season they are long and thin much like any other orange carrot, but later they get incredibly fat, with a unique conical shape. We included it in our carrot trials for the first time in 2003, and in the end because it makes such very fat roots, it gave one of the highest yields of the lot! Traditional carrot from France. Also known as the Luc Carrot. High yielding with good flavour. Order CtDE - About 300 seed £1.54 (LAST FEW packets this year) "just a quick email to say I used many of your seeds on my allotment this year, most have grown very well and tasted really good. One of your d'eysines won the fattest carrot category in the produce show."  - Martin Reed Saving Carrot Seed: Carrot seed is fairly easy, provided you don't have any wild carrot (Queen Anne's Lace') growing nearby. Here we are selecting and storing Dragon Purple Carrots for seed production. Carrots flower in their second year, so you need to dig up your carrots in Autumn. Lay them all out so you can compare them, and select the best 40 roots: Make sure you choose ones that are true-to-type: right colour, shape & size. You can even test the taste by slicing off the tip! If your area has cold winters, store them in sand or sawdust in a cool but frost-free place, and plant out in spring. (the ideal is about 5-10 C and 95% humidity, so keep them damp) Otherwise in milder areas, replant them straight away where you want them to grow. You can plant them quite close together, so 40 needn't take up much space. (The numbers are really important if you want to get good seed.) The next summer they will flower (to about 5 foot high!) MAKE SURE THERE IS NO QUEEN ANNES LACE NEARBY, THEY WILL CROSS! ... and seed is ready in autumn. Just rub the seed off when it is mostly brown. You will get huge amounts of seed: if you dry it properly (see our seed-saving pages) it will be good for 2 or 3 years. Seed-saving instructions are included with your seeds, so you can do this yourself. And of course, seed-saving is only possible because these are all real, non-hybrid varieties.