Not only is growing your own vegetables a much cheaper way of getting your 5 a day; it’s good for both mental and physical health, too.
If your parents told you to eat your carrots to see in the dark, they were on to something. Carrots won’t cure pre-existing vision problems, but they can protect against sight issues caused by a lack of vitamin A.
You may picture an orange vegetable when you think of a carrot, but that’s not always the case. Carrots come in lots of different colours and each one brings a different health benefit to the table.
In this ‘Can You Dig It’ feature, gardener Roger will be sharing his top tips on how you can grow a rainbow of carrots to help you feel good and save money on your shop, too.
You can pick up carrot seeds from your local gardening centre and even some supermarkets. They’re also available to buy online for as little as 99p, so don’t be afraid to try lots of colours as they look and taste great.
- Prepare your soil, whether in your garden, an allotment or in a large pot on your patio or indoor windowsill, to make sure it’s nice and soft for the seeds to go in.
- Create a shallow trench in the soil of about 1 inch, especially if it’s outdoors, to protect them from the weather.
- Sprinkle the carrot seeds over the soil, making sure they are spread out evenly to give the carrots room to grow.
- Carefully cover the seeds over with a little soil, no more than a few millimetres, to protect the seeds. Top tip: get a label to stick in the soil so you remember what’s growing where, especially if you’re planting lots of seeds at once.
Within around 4 weeks of sowing your carrots, you should see some seedlings starting to grow through the soil. The carrots should be ready to pick and eat after around 12 weeks.