VEGETABLE SEEDS Aubergines Beans - French Beans - Runner Beetroot Broad Beans Broccoli & Rapini Brussels Sprouts Cabbage Cauliflower Carrots Celery, & Celeriac Chilli Peppers Courgettes & Summer Squash Cucumbers, Gherkins & suchlike things Fennel Flowers Grains Herbs Kale Kohl Rabi Leaf Greens for Cooking Leeks Lettuces Melons & Watermelons Mustard Greens ( for cooking) Onions - spring sowing Onions - overwintering Onions - special types Oriental Greens for cooking & salads Parsnips Peas Pumpkins & Winter Squash Radishes (salad, & cooking types) Root Parsley Salad Vegetables Sweet Corn Swedes Sweet Peppers Tomatoes : Bush Types Tomatoes : Vines - Cherries Tomatoes : Vines - Larger Tomatoes : New Centiflor types Tomatilloes & Groundcherries Turnips Unusual Tubers: Oca & Yacon

~ CARROT Seeds ~

Carrots are ready to harvest in about 3 to 4 months from sowing.
You sow them outside several times from spring to mid-summer. Later crops can be stored over winter. ( = )
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. Good both for early crops as it grows quickly, but also for maincrop sowings and storage over winter.

Quick, large table carrot . Young specimen in photo doesn't do it credit - they get MUCH bigger!

Order CtGR - About 400 seed £1.96

'Jaune Obtuse de Doubs' Yellow Carrot

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 400 seed £1.91

"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

'Blanche a Collet Vert' White & Green Carrot
This is a traditional variety from Belgium. All carrots were originally white or purple – the orange ones are a quite recent invention. The carrots are white, and the top inch or so is green, so they are bicolour when pulled up – very pretty both cooked and raw.

White, green tops, long and pointy, less attractive to carrot fly.

Order CtBC - about 350 seed £1.33

'Dragon Purple' Carrot
New for 2012, a purple-skinned carrot!

A beautiful purple carrot - just as they would have looked when they were first domesticated in the Middle East thousands of years ago. This variety is fairly sweet and they have a decently strong 'carrot' flavour.

Purple, orange flesh inside.

Order CtDP - about 250 seed £1.96 (rare seed, so a slightly smaller packet, but this is still a lot of carrots)

'Touchon' Carrot - SWEET , GOOD FOR STORAGE OVERWINTER

This is a quick-gowing heirloom variety of orange carrot from France, dating from the late 1700’s. It is still a favourite with many growers (after 200 years) because it has a fine crisp texture and an excellent sweet flavour.

The roots don’t taper much and are quite blunt-tipped. It is a particularly good one to choose for winter storage as it stays sweet for several months after lifting from the ground. But also a great carrot for use fresh, as it has such a good flavour.

To store carrots, it is pretty easy, just lift in autumn once the weather has cooled, but before heavy frost as this can damage the roots. Trim the foliage and sort out any damaged ones to use straight away. Store the perfect roots in layers in sand, sawdust or dry potting compost making sure they don't touch one another. Stored in a cool but frost free place (eg a garage) they will happily keep through to the following spring.

Good keeper, early & tasty.

Order CtTo - about 400 seed £1.92

D'Eysines Carrot (HUGE FAT CARROTS)
This is a really 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 400 seed £1.96

SORRY SOLD OUT FEB 2013

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)

In particularly mild areas you can 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.