Daucus carota Seeds | Royal Chantenay Carrot
LATIN NAME: Daucus carota
COMMON NAME: Royal Chantenay Carrot
Plant Profile
Royal Chantenay is a stump-rooted carrot, 12-15 cm long and 5 cm across at the shoulder, with a broad top and a blunt tip. The shape is the point: it grows in heavy or shallow soil where a long carrot would fork or stop, and it pulls cleanly without breaking.
The colour is a deep orange that holds through cooking, and the flavour is sweet and strong, sweeter than most supermarket carrots, with a firm core that does not turn woody. It is a maincrop variety, sown in spring for autumn and winter lifting, and it stores well in sand or in a clamp.
Carrots come from the Afghan and eastern Mediterranean region, where the original roots were purple and yellow. The orange carrot was selected in Europe in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and the Chantenay group was developed in France in the nineteenth century for market gardens on heavy soil.
Science & Biotechnology
The orange colour is beta-carotene, and its concentration in Chantenay is high, which is why the roots colour a stock so strongly. Carotenoids are fat-soluble, so a carrot eaten with butter or oil gives up more of them than one eaten raw and dry.
Carrot flavour depends on terpenoids and on sugars, and both are affected by growing conditions. A cool, steady autumn builds sugar; a dry summer builds terpenes and a harsher taste. That is why a late-sown Chantenay lifted after frost tastes sweeter than the same variety pulled in August.
The blunt root is an adaptation to soil rather than a breeding accident. Long carrots need deep, stone-free ground, and any obstruction produces forking or a stub. Chantenay was selected for shallow soils and for market gardens where a short root could be lifted without a fork going deep.
Uses & Benefits
Royal Chantenay is a kitchen carrot: roasted whole, sliced into soups and stews, grated for cake, or eaten raw. Its sweetness makes it good for carrot soup and for glazed carrots, and its sturdy core means it holds shape in a long braise.
In the garden the variety is the answer to a heavy clay or a shallow raised bed, where it will outperform long types. It also works in containers 25 cm deep. Commercially it is a processing and bunching carrot, and its storage quality makes it a maincrop rather than a summer treat.
Growing from Seed
Sow direct from April to July, 1 cm deep, in rows 25 cm apart, and thin to 4-5 cm as soon as the seedlings are big enough to handle. Carrot seed is slow, two to three weeks, and the row must be kept moist until it is up.
Sow thinly to reduce the thinning, because the smell of crushed seedlings attracts carrot root fly. Growing under a fine mesh barrier from May onward is the only reliable organic control. Keep the ground weed-free and water steadily; a dry spell followed by rain splits the roots. Lift from October onward, or leave them in the ground under straw and pull as needed through winter.
Our Take
The carrot to grow on heavy ground and in shallow beds, sweet enough for the table and sturdy enough to store until spring.
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