Can Carrots Grow Indoors?
Carrots are among the easiest vegetables to grow indoors, and your indoor carrot garden will be attractive as well as functional. Potted carrots fill their container with dark green, lacy foliage that you’ll be proud to display in any room of your home. You can grow baby carrots in any size container, but longer varieties need deeper pots. Choose a pot that is at least 8 inches (20 cm.) deep to grow short or half-long varieties, and one that is 10 to 12 inches (25-31 cm.) deep for standard length carrots. Fill the pot with good quality potting soil to within an inch (2.5 cm.) of the top. Now you are ready to plant carrots.
How to Grow Carrot Plants in Pots
The first challenge to growing carrots indoors is getting those tiny little seeds into the soil. To save yourself some frustration, don’t worry about trying to space them evenly around the pot. Just moisten the soil and sprinkle the seeds over the surface. Once they germinate, clip out the extra seedlings with a pair of scissors so that the remaining carrots are about one-half inch (1 cm.) apart. When they are about 3 inches (8 cm.) tall and you can see which seedlings are the sturdiest, thin them again to about an inch (2.5 cm.) apart or the distance recommended on the seed packet. Place your potted carrots in a sunny window and keep the soil moist at the surface until the seeds germinate. Water the pot when the soil is dry at a depth of 1 inch (2.5 cm.) once the seedlings begin to grow. When the seedlings reach a height of 3 inches (8 cm.), it’s time to start a regular feeding schedule. Use a liquid houseplant fertilizer mixed at full strength every two weeks. Harvest carrots any time after they develop their mature color. Tiny, immature carrots are a tasty treat, but you don’t get much carrot for your effort, so you probably want to let at least some of them grow to full size. Harvest the carrots by pulling them straight out of the soil. Digging around in the soil disturbs the roots of other carrots and may cause deformities. Not enough carrots? Prolong the harvest by planting additional pots of carrots at two week intervals. After all, you can never have too many carrots.
