PREMIER SEEDS DIRECT - Carrot - Rainbow Mix - 1500 Finest Seeds

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You can simply cut off the green part and eat the rest of your carrot. However, if you’d like to prevent sunburning, simply hill up the soil around your carrot plant when you start to notice the tops pushing out of the ground.

Kyoto Red (75 days)– This is a Japanese carrot and has rosy red roots and tall, healthy tops. The carrots are smooth with red skin and interiors and can grow up to a foot in length. I like to plant seeds in mid-summer for a fall and winter harvest. Wild carrot was reportedly used as a medicinal plantin ancient Rome. It was used as an aphrodisiac and in mixtures to help prevent poisoning. A Roman army physician namedPedaniusDioscordineswrote about both wild and cultivated forms of carrots in 65 B.C. He wrote that wild carrot could ward off reptiles and act as an aphrodisiac and diuretic. The cultivated forms were reported to be more palatable but less used for medicinal purposes. During the Arab expansion into Europe, cultivated carrots were brought to the area of Andalusia (Spain). From Spain, carrot cultivation spread into the rest of northern Europe. The first carrots that were brought over to Europe were either purple or a mutant of the purple carrot that appeared yellow. The carrots were purple because they contained high amounts of anthocyanins, a pigment compound touted today for its antioxidant properties. Growing carrots from seed is amazingly easy and fun. With no need for transplanting or starting the seeds indoors, it really takes the burden out of planting them. Please note carrots are not the easiest of vegetables to grow well and benefit from lighter stone free soils.Ease: There is cooking involved in this salad recipe but not overly complicated. Red onions and rainbow carrots are roasted in oven and then pearl couscous cooked on the stove. White Satin (70 days)– White Satin is a fast-growing carrot with creamy white roots and green shoulders. The tops are tall and grow up to 18”, but can break off when pulled. I therefore prefer to lift the roots from the soil with my garden fork. Expect a bumper crop of 8 to 9” long carrots that are very juicy and lightly sweet. Great for juicing. At the same time, you can roast the red onions. First, peel and cut the red onion in half. Then cut each half into thirds. You end up with 6 pieces per onion. Some varieties will naturally push up out of the soil as their roots grow so that the tops will be exposed to sunlight. You can push the soil up around the exposed top so that it does not turn green.

STORAGE: Plant carrots intended for winter storage about 100 days before expected fall frost. Carrots store best at 32°F (0°C) and 95% relative humidity. Growing a kaleidoscope of carrots is also a great way to engage children in the garden. Kids love to plant the seeds, water the seedlings, and harvest the roots. Who knows, they may even eat their vegetables!Carrot seeds are small, brown, and light in weight. Moisten the soil before planting and sow the seeds in rows. Cover the seeds with a ¼ inchof light, loose soil to prevent the seeds from floating or blowing away. Space your carrot rows12 to 18 inches apart, and sow the seeds about 1 inch apart in the row. When the sprouts have grown to about 1-2” tall, they should be thinned vigorously. Because the seeds are so small, it is common, and almost impossible not to, over-plant and have too many seedlings vying for the same space. Carrots need approximately, depending on variety, 1-3 inches between each plant. If they are not thinned enough, you will end up with tiny, thin carrots that are all top and no root. Carrots are best thinned by carefully snipping the tops off the unwanted ones with a small pair of scissors. This reduces the possibility of damage to the delicate seedlings you are going to keep. Cumin seeds: Lightly toast cumin seeds before use helps bring out the aroma and oils. I love the aromatic warmth of cumin seeds in recipes, but it can be overpowering, so sometimes less is more with this spice. Before I share my favorite rainbow carrot varieties, I want to point out that there is actually a carrot called Rainbow. It’s not a mixture of colored varieties but is a hybrid that produces different colored roots. The roots of Rainbow vary in color from orange to gold to pale yellow to white. The benefit of growing this variety is that you get a color range, but you also have the roots mature uniformly at the same time. The downside is that you don’t get red or purple roots from this hybrid. I like to use carrots in several dishes! For soups and pot pies, I use chopped carrots. As a vegetable side for supper, I will either chop large carrots or use whole baby carrots and season with either brown sugar and cinnamon or with honey and ginger. Carrots prepared this way can be cooked on the stove or they can be roasted in the oven.

Now place the roasted rainbow carrots into the mixing bowl and dress with remaining honey Dijon dressing. Mix and then tumble on top of the pearl couscous and red onion mixture. In a mixing bowl, place toasted cumin seeds, rainbow carrots, olive oil and salt together. Toss well.Carrots are normally sown outdoors between March and July and harvested throughout the summer and autumn. Early varieties can be sown as early as February under cloches. The first evidence of carrot cultivation was on the Iranian plateau in Persia in the 10th century. Carrots that were domesticated in central Asia were actually purple, yellow, and white – not orange. The wild carrot itself has a white, forked taproot. Whenever you visit the grocery store, you usually only see orange carrots. Commercially grown, this variety of carrots are the most common.