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~ CARROT Seeds ~ 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. High yielding with good flavour Order CtDE - About 300 seed £1.35 'Giant Red' Dark Orange Carrot Despite the name, this is not what we would call truly giant! 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. We will definitely be keeping this one in the future, while selecting for a redder colour. Quick, large table carrot . Young specimen in photo doesn't do it credit - they get bigger! Order CtGR - About 350 seed £1.40 '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 £1.35 "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     'Blanc a Collet Vert' White & Green Carrot This is a traditional variety once popular all over Europe. We think it originated in Belgium about 200 years ago as a selection from the 'Long White' variety. The long root is white, and the top inch or so sticks up out of the soil, turning green. It's a nice carrot, and always popular with Historical re-enactment societies (They have to have white carrots in their soup before the battles, for true authenticity!) White, green tops, long and pointy. Needs good spacing for best results. Order CtBC - about 350 seed £0.99 ' Lisse de Meaux' Long Carrot - SWEET , GOOD FOR STORAGE OVERWINTER New last year, 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 £1.35 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: dry it well, and it will be good for 2 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.