carrot

When to sow carrots?

Botanical name
Daucus carota
Family
Apiaceae

Carrots are sown outdoors from March to July, 0.5 cm deep. They germinate in 20 to 30 days. They are harvested from June to November.

Carrots are biennial plants. The edible parts are the roots, leaves, flowers and seeds.

carrot
Photo: Salicyna · CC BY-SA 4.0

Carrots through the year

JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
Outdoor sowing
Harvest
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  • outdoor sowing
  • harvest

In short

Outdoor sowing
from March to July
weeks 12 to 28
Sowing depth
0.5 cm
Spacing in the row
5 to 8 cm
15 to 45 cm between rows
Germination
20 to 30 days
Germination temperature
13 to 24 °C
Days to maturity
65 to 120 days
Harvest
from June to November
weeks 24 to 46

Growing conditions

🪨
Soil
light and loamy
🧪
pH
5.5 to 6.5
☀️
Sun
full sun
💧
Water
moderate water
❄️
Frost
overwinters outdoors
🌱
Nutrients
a moderate feeder
🔁
Crop rotation
no sooner than the fourth year
📏
Height
8 to 90 cm

Companions in the bed

Companion planting is tradition and not an agronomic claim. What is recorded is which pairs sources recommend and which they advise against.

lettuce cited
onion widely cited

The classic pair against the carrot fly.

radish cited

The radish comes up fast and marks the row of the slow carrot. It is pulled before the carrot needs the room.

dill cited

Dill is in the same family as the carrot. A carrot beside dill lags in growth, and the two can cross-pollinate.

  • “Widely cited” means the pair is named by three or more independent sources.
  • “Cited” means the pair is named by one source or two.

Pests and diseases

Listed here is every problem for which the sources name this plant as a host. The problems are not listed in order of how common they are.

Carrot fly

pest
Signs
Just under the skin of the root there are rusty pits and tunnels, with small yellowish larvae in them. The top can turn yellow. An attacked root is no use in store and rots quickly.
Prevention
Sow thinly, so that you do not have to thin out, because the smell at thinning is what draws the females in. Sow later and harvest earlier to dodge the first and the second generation. Keep to a rotation, because the fly hatches from the soil.
What to do
Cover the whole bed with fine insect mesh from sowing on. Covering the whole bed is more reliable than a vertical barrier along it.

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Related plants

The plants below are in the same botanical family (Apiaceae).

Sources about the plant: Clemson Cooperative Extension, GBIF Backbone Taxonomy, KGZS Zavod Ljubljana, KGZS Zavod Nova Gorica, NC State Extension Plant Toolbox, Royal Horticultural Society, Semenarna Ljubljana, Smernice za strokovno utemeljeno gnojenje (Mihelič et al., MKGP 2011), Utah State University Extension, Wikidata. Checked between 14 and 28 August 2026. The problem descriptions also draw on: EPPO Global Database.