Celebrating the Red Chantenay Carrot (and How We Save Its Seeds)

February 2025

By Peter Brinch

Nowadays it can be hard to find good-tasting carrots. Unfortunately, we often put up with dull-tasting, hybrid carrots which have dominated the market for decades, especially during the winter and spring months. In the past year, the Tablehurst Farm garden produced some beautiful, open, pollinated* carrots. One of the varieties grown is called Red Chantenay, a wedge or cone-shaped variety with a slightly rounded end. It is, as confirmed by our customers, a very tasty variety with a good crunchiness and proper carrot taste which is pleasantly sweet despite its large size this year.

The Chantenay is originally a type developed in France in the 1850s but has stood the test of time. Its popularity has come and gone but it has always been available on the market with more of a comeback in recent years.  The Tablehurst Farm garden started to grow this variety several years back and then, enjoying them so much, we selected a number of roots in the autumn of 2022 to produce seeds from them the following year.  

Our gardener happy with the fruits (or veg) of his labour!

A carrot is biennial, which means it has a two-year growing cycle. The first year produces the root and the second year, being its reproductive year, will see it go into flower in the month of April and May for pollination. The seeds are then harvested from the middle of August over a period of several weeks. Therefore, if one wants to save or produce seeds from carrots, it is a journey of dedication over those two years. 

So, what is involved in the process? Last June and July, when coming onto the farm, you would likely have seen on the left of the driveway the garden team on hands and knees in the field for days. They were weeding the carrot crops, which is a very fiddly job and requires some endurance. The harvest took place from September onwards, after a lot of welcomed rain, though the crop had been irrigated and nurtured throughout the hot dry summer that we had. 

Selecting for seeds - which ones will make it to the final?

After the harvest, the garden team looked through many carrot roots, selecting 125 of the best and true to type roots, for shape, skin, texture, size, making sure the growing point is without damage and the form is without splitting or division. These roots have now been labelled, and placed into cold storage separately from the rest of the carrots earmarked for the shop. Here they will stay until the end of February or early March, when we take them out again, look through them for further damage, and then we will test and select based on good flavour and sweetness. This is done by cutting a small piece (2-3 cm) off the bottom part and tasting each carrot.

From these, approximately 65 – 70 of the roots will be planted back into the ground in one of the polytunnels. They will produce new shoots which will require support as they grow up to six feet high and will be irrigated over the season. During this time, we will spray the biodynamic preparations and finally harvest the seeds late summer to early autumn. The seeds will be hand threshed and processed to give as clean a seed as we can for sowing in the coming next several growing seasons. 

It is important for us that our carrots are especially tasty, whether cooked or eaten raw, as it makes such a difference. Especially over the dark cold winter months, when we eat these carrots which have essentially stored the summer sunlight and season in their roots, that their goodness is released and shine within us. This bonus of saving seeds is the real journey and satisfaction that grows in us, that inspires us, which we are truly happy to share with you. 

If you have any questions or clarifications to this article, please get in touch with Peter Brinch: phdbrinch@gmail.com 

* To find out more about Peter or the subject of pollinated seeds, please visit www.open-pollinated-seeds.org.uk