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Connecticut Garden Journal
Connecticut Garden Journal is a weekly program hosted by horticulturalist Charlie Nardozzi. Each week, Charlie focuses on a topic relevant to both new and experienced gardeners, including pruning lilac bushes, growing blight-free tomatoes, groundcovers, sunflowers, bulbs, pests, and more.

Connecticut Garden Journal: The Carrot Renaissance

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Carrots are going through a renaissance with colorful varieties being rediscovered.

The story goes that during World War II, the English started using radar to detect Nazi bombers. 

They started shooting down the bombers at an alarming rate so the Germans got suspicious.

To lead them away from the idea of radar towers, they concocted a story that English pilots were fed extra rations of carrots to increase their night vision and see the planes better.

Whether the Germans bought this idea or not, many people started eating carrots to see better at night.

While carrots are good for your health, they won't give you Superman-like vision. But carrots are going through a renaissance with colorful varieties being rediscovered.

In carrot's homeland, the mountains of India and Pakistan, the dominant varieties are red and purple colored. It wasn't until the Dutch started breeding carrots and selecting for orange (their national color), that we got modern carrot varieties.

Luckily, we still can grow colorful heirlooms such as Atomic Red, Purple Dragon, and Yellowstone.

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 Plant carrots now in compost-amended, raised beds on well-drained, soil. Mix in radish seed with your carrots. The radishes will germinate first, breaking up the soil for the later germinating carrots.

Plant in rows or broadcast the seed and keep well watered. Thin carrots to two inches apart, and then again a few weeks later to four inches apart. 

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Use the thinned tops in salads for tasty carrot treat.

Harvest once their roots color up. Grow a crop for fall and overwinter carrots in the ground by burying them in hay mulch in November. Depending on the winter, you'll keep harvesting carrots until spring.

Next week on the Connecticut Garden Journal, I'll be talking about unusual melons. Until then, I'll be seeing you in the garden.

Charlie Nardozzi is a regional Emmy® Award winning garden writer, speaker, radio, and television personality. He has worked for more than 30 years bringing expert information to home gardeners.

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