Spring Garden Tips
Growing Your Own Healthy Snack

Grow a few healthy snacks for you and your family to enjoy. Carrots have the crunch of chips and crackers without the fat and calories.

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mgm_audio_177_healthy_snackCarrots are not only nutritious, but fun for the family to grow and suitable for most gardens. The new shapes and colors make this a fun and colorful addition to the garden and snack tray. You’ll find long and thin, short and stubby, round like a radish and orange, red, yellow, white, and even purple carrots.

Grow them in cool weather along with peas, beets, and radishes for the best results and flavor. Dig a shallow trench, planting the seeds 2 to 3 inches apart and ¼ inch deep. Or mix the fine carrot seeds with vermiculite or sand and sprinkle this mixture over the soil surface. Gently water the new planting and keep the soil moist until the carrots sprout.

Double your harvest and reduce thinning by mixing radish and carrot seeds when planting. You’ll harvest the radish seeds in about 45 days, leaving space for the carrots to continue to grow to their mature size.

A bit more information: Harvest carrots when the roots are full size. Use a garden fork or spade to loosen the soil and carefully lift them out of the ground. Remove all but an inch of the greens and store them in a cool location.

 

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