Handling carrot seeds (or any small seeds for that matter) can be tricky. Planting the tiny seeds and growing them yourself can prove to be harder than expected. If you want a simple and effective way to evenly line up tiny seeds, our editor Steve Aitken will show you a better way to do it. Growing carrots is less difficult than it may seem. To see some of our favorite carrot varieties to grow, read this article.

Before you actually do it, growing carrots seems terrible — especially if you’ve listened to the tales of fellow gardeners, citing drainage woes and deformed crops. But what’s a gardener to do once you’ve succeeded with the surefire “easy-to-grow” veggies and want to broaden the harvest to include delicious carrots? I was at that point a few years ago, so I decided to bite the bullet and buy as many types of carrot seed that I could find to trial. Each variety got one row, and to my surprise, many flourished. So before you say, “No, thank you” and stick to reliable crops you can watch grow aboveground, take a look at these tasty taproot champions that emerged as my favorites.

‘Scarlet Nantes’

All these seeds RSVP’d to the garden party and germinated, driving me close to tears while I was thinning them out. The seed-packet illustration promised hearty, thick, stump-ended carrots, but after waiting two months and pulling some up, I got big, conical taproots. This didn’t make a bit of difference when the carrots were grated up for a cake or blended into a soup. A few months later, however, I found some ‘Scarlet Nantes’ hidden behind a grumpy cabbage. When I pulled, I found full-on stumps, true to the packet’s promise. ‘Scarlet Nantes’ tastes great cooked or raw and is a must-sow for novices and pros alike. It matures in 65 to 75 days. Read more.

How to Create Perfect Carrot Rows Easily

Learn how to perfect carrot rows in your vegetable garden with this step-by-step guide.

Materials Needed and Process

Carrot seeds

Twine

1. Take a small length of twine

2. Dip the twine into a bowl of water

3. Remove the twine from the water, then drag the wet twine through your carrot seeds to pick them up. Water helps seeds stick to the twine.

4. Take your seed-covered twine and lay it down in your row

5. The result is well spread-out seeds in a perfectly straight line

Happy growing!

For more on carrots, you can watch our Home Grown, Home Made video series here.