long-season carrot varieties

16 years ago

I'm having trouble finding a storage carrot variety that I can plant in late June while the weather is still cool and damp (for easily germinating carrots) and that will be at peak harvest condition in late November when the weather is cold enough for effective winter storage outside with mulch or in a root cellar.

I don't know if it's the effects of climate change or what but I used to start Bolero and other common storage varieties (listed at around 75 days) around the summer solstice and have perfect carrots for winter. In the past several years those carrots have been getting "overcooked," not at peak ripeness when consistently cold weather finally stops growth and provides sufficiently low temps for storage.

Anyone else in the north having this problem? I've tried starting seeds in July/Aug but have trouble with germination, slugs, etc during the warm summer months. Vacations, house guests, etc., don't help with carrot success at that time either.

So I'm hoping to find a longer season carrot with excellent winter keeping characteristics and good fresh eating flavor (90+ days?). Any suggestions?

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Comments (5)

marshallz10
16 years ago
I've been thinking on this subject for a time. There are some old OP varieties that can stay in the ground for a long time without going off. There are even a few hybrids with long growing seasons. Here are some of my favorites, often planted here in the fall for overwintering. See also a Cornell carrot study linked below.

Merida from Territorial Seed for overwintering Z5 and warmer (6 months)
Bolero hybrid -- still the best all purpose carrot for fresh or storage.
Kurota Chantenay, another Fall cropper and top Japanese keeper
Autumn King 2
Carotene 200 -- great juicer
Oxheart -- old stump-rooted and will keep in the ground, good juicer and flavor
St. Valery, an old French variety
Topweight Improved, another stump-rooted carrot of great weight
Healthmaster hybrid, we plant in the Spring and harvest 130-150 days later

Here is a link that might be useful: carrot performance and flavor in hot summers
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faithling
Original Author
16 years ago
Thanks for the suggestions. Interesting article too. Funny that they didn't factor-in the optimal harvest time from planting for the different varieties. That has a huge effect on taste.

Where do you find Healthmaster and is it a good tasting carrrot?

I just read about Merida in the Territorial catalog today. Has anyone tried that in the north as a spring/early summer planting for late fall harvest? Sounds like it has a good long season and might meet my need but I'd like to know what other gardeners think about it.
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Wow - that's a much wider spacing than I guessed. I may need to replant some tomorrow. For some reason, I thought they could be placed close together. Maybe that was onions. Well, this year is an experiment. Next year, I want to save good quality seed to share. mauirose - unfortunately, they are only purple on the outside. The inside is more yellow orange. bsntech - I had carrots over winter under shredded leaves, but I didn't try it with this variety this year. Glad to see more people seed-saving! Just FYI - carrots cross easily with Queen Ann's Lace and broccoli can be tricky. Do you have "Seed to Seed" by Suzanne Ashworth? Great book on seed saving! Bellatrix
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Jonfrum: I disagree 100%, carrot do sweeten in the winter. We have been growing winter carrots for the last 4 years and I look forward to them every year. More so than the first tomato! We like Napoli. We have grown Nelson, Mokum and Yaya during the winter too. They just aren't quite as hardy as Napoli We plant them at the end of July to the First week of August. We Harvest them from mid October- March. We still have some growing now and while they aren't as good as the earlier ones, they taste better than the ones in the store. Our spring carrots will be ready in a few weeks. They were planted in January. We grow ours in movable high tunnels. We plant the crop outside, then after the frost takes the tomatoes, mid November, we move the high tunnel over the carrots and it stays there until spring. We grow over 1000 square feet of carrots for winter sales. I will probably up this by 250-300 more square feet as we almost ran out this year. Each building has 5, 30 inch beds in it. Each bed has 4 rows planted in it. It is a whole lot of carrots. Don't just take my word for it, google Eliot Coleman and Candy Carrots. Jay
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Thanks for all your thoughts! I do grow two types... I've refined this over many years. I plant an early, sweet variety really early, which we eat in early/mid summer. Then in late spring/early summer I plant my storage variety, so it'll be ready in September/October. I also plant a second crop of the "early" (non-storage) type in mid-summer, for fresh eating later in the season. My storage crop is Bolero, and I plant Mokum and Nelson for the sweet types. I've thought about freezing, which I may do this year to at least part of the crop... it's just that I do so much other freezing (beans, peas, corn, tomatoes, peppers, fruit) that I was trying to minimize that time-consuming activity :) I'm also GC-ing and DIY-ing the major house/yard reno, and trying to work too, so I don't have much extra time. And definitely not for canning, though I always love seeing macybaby's canning pics!!! I do have a remote temp/humidity sensor in my root cellar room. Temps in there -even in the dead of winter when its 0 degrees F outside- are never lower than about 45 F. I really think it's the water flowing beneath the house. You can see the path it takes across the lawn, underground, because the snow is always thinner there and melts very quickly in spring. Is the water warm? I don't know... One thing I may try is moving the ventilation tubes (I have two, in the proper high-low configuration, with blast gates and all that). Right now they draw air from the crawl space below an addition. In order to make them draw from the exterior, we'd have to drill/chip large holes through the masonry walls of the house. There's not even a wood sill to go through, it's all thick concrete :( However, I'm a little reticent to do all that work (and make big holes in the house) if it won't solve the problem. For instance: what about in fall when it's warm outside? How to cool the crops down in Oct, November? I wish I had a "cool" space, but the garage freezes solid, and I've no in-between zone :( And you guys are right, too... maybe I just need to adjust my expectations and decide that having our own carrots until early March is darn good enough :)
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Amsterdam Forcing is a terrific carrot. Early-ish, sweet and crunchy. I'm on my fourth crop this season.
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marshallz10
16 years ago
I don't recall where I bought Healthmaster but have seen it in several catalogs.

I suspected the trials used best growing practices and timed the trials to match local customs. A lot of flavor depends on having good carrot ground. Some of best tasting carrots have been grown on soils heavily tainted with DDT derivatives from 40 to 50 years ago. Carrots are excellent accumulators of chlorohydrocarbons.
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faithling
Original Author
16 years ago
Yuck. That doesn't sound very healthy.

I did read recently that carrots taste better grown in acidic soil. That would explain why carrot flavor was better when I first started to garden in my acidic glacial till. After a decade of amendments, including ash and lime, the flavor doesn't seem as sweet and complex.
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skagit_goat_man_
16 years ago
I start Autumn King's in July and they hold up pretty well in the ground all winter (z7, sandy soil). When spring hits dig up the best of the carrots and plant them in an out of the way bed and grow seed for planting or cooking use. Ox Heart carrots also hold over winter here but I get a large % of them splitting. Tom
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long-season carrot varieties

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long-season carrot varieties

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