- A plethora of different varieties
- The distinction according to the intended use
- Long carrots for stock and kitchen
- Fun ways for the colorful kitchen
- tips and tricks
With relatively little effort, you can also grow tasty carrots in your own garden. The nutritious root vegetables grow in rows on loose and humus-rich soil in raised beds or vegetable beds and can be eaten raw or cooked.
A plethora of different varieties
There are a variety of different varieties of carrots that are cultivated today in private gardens and in commercial cultivation. If you want to sow carrots yourself in the garden, you will usually be spoiled for choice in the trade. However, most of the cultivars on offer correspond to today's standard image of orange-colored carrots. In particular, earlier cultivars of carrots from the 17th and 18th centuries were still predominantly white, yellow or purple-violet in colour.
The distinction according to the intended use
Depending on the intended use, different types of carrots are distinguished based on their usage properties. For example, there is:
- long and pointed storage varieties for winter storage
- short and cone-shaped carrots for preparation as a vegetable side dish
- extravagant varieties in yellow, white or red
It is advisable to obtain precise information on the growth characteristics and requirements of a variety before sowing the rows in the vegetable patch.
Long carrots for stock and kitchen
The most popular long-rooted varieties include Nantaise, Merida, Ingot and Adelaide, which tend to have a blunt tip. The pointed varieties Sperlings Cubic and Sweet Candle have roots that are just as long. With their long roots, these carrot varieties are perfect for storage, but they can also be eaten fresh after harvest.
Fun ways for the colorful kitchen
The standard program in kitchens around the world includes types of carrots such as the Paris carrots, which are barely more than 4 cm long and grow almost spherically. Colorful effects can also be conjured up when cooking with the yellow roots of the Yellow Stone variety and the almost white Creme de Lite variety. When growing, mix different types of carrots to bring color variety to the plate.
tips and tricks
In order to harvest particularly tender and fine carrots, you do not necessarily have to resort to special seeds. Carrots can also be harvested as relatively young seedlings by pulling the main roots, which are still a few centimeters long, out of the ground together with the leaves. Since there are no unripe carrot roots, young carrots can be eaten raw or cooked at any time.
WK