«Nantes» - Organic Carrot Seeds

Nantes carrots were first described in the Henri Vilmorin 1885 edition of his family's famous seed catalog as having a near perfect cylindrical root with smooth skin and entirely edible near-red flesh both sweet and mild in flavor.

It has maintained these culinary virtues and qualities and continues to be a Gold standard for medium sized carrots. Its most unique characteristic is that is is both rounded at the tip of the root and at the bottom. Nantes carrots are revered for their special sweetness, crisp texture and inconspicuous core. 
 

The most difficult thing about learning about growing carrots is understanding how to avoid the carrot root fly. The root fly is attracted to the carrots by the smell of the foliage which is more intense after any job you have to do on them. The idea therefore is sow as close as you can to the correct distances and to protect the crop.

Carrots require a very fine soil without any large stones or obstacles. The soil should be light and sandy if possible and not recently manured. Carrots are bad competitors with weeds so you want as weed free an environment as possible. The stale seedbed technique is a good organic solution where the bed is cleared and prepared and left for any weed seeds present to germinate. Hoe or rake out the young weeds before you plant your carrot seeds.

Sowing carrots seeds in a fine seed bedWhen sowing your seeds you want to get them as close as you can to the correct spacing as removing any unwanted plants will attract the carrot fly. Carrot seeds are very small and difficult to sow thinly so here's a trick: Mix your carrot seed with sand at a ratio of 100 to 1, that's about a quarter teaspoon of carrot seed to a quarter cup of sand. Sow your carrot seeds in shallow drills about 2cm deep. Spacing for carrots is 3-4cm between plants and 20-25cm between rows. They should start to pop their heads above the ground in approx 17 days.