GardenCarrot variety
Scarlet Keeper Carrot
✓ In your garden
Scarlet Keeper is an orange nantes carrot, ready in about 85 days. Sweet and crisp for fresh eating, juicing, and cooking. Carrots want loose, stone-free soil to grow straight — sow the seed directly (they hate transplanting) and thin the seedlings so each has room.
“A sweet, crisp carrot for fresh eating.”
Growing basics — shared by every carrot
Scarlet Keeper grows like any other carrot. The full picture — how deep to plant, spacing, feeding, pests, harvest — lives on the Carrot page so it's maintained in one place.
- Sun
- Full Sun
- Spacing (in row)
- 2–3 in
- Row spacing
- 12–18 in
- Planting depth
- 0.25–0.5 in
- Soil pH
- 6–7
- Water
- Moderate
What is Scarlet Keeper good for?
- Fresh & snackingSweetest straight from the ground. Great
- Cooking & roastingRoasts up sweet. Great
- StorageKeeps for months, cool and dark. Great
From how it grows — kitchens vary.
What Scarlet Keeper is known for
We hold one description of this variety and no record of who made it, so it is not printed here. An unattributed claim about a plant is a claim we would be making ourselves, and we would rather show you the gap than fill it.
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Want the full 10/50/90% odds + nearest stations? Open the frost tool →When to plant Scarlet Keeper in your zone
Zone 6bGreenhouse or cover on: your start slides ~4 weeks earlier and your harvest stretches ~3 weeks later (shown striped).
Planting seeds straight in the ground only works where the season's long and warm — most gardeners start seeds indoors or buy young plants, or you'd pick your first tomato right as frost hits.
Comfortable — first ripe fruit lands around mid Jun, well before your typical frost (~late Oct).
- Plant seeds outside
- late Mar – early Apr
- Growing
- early Apr – mid Jun
- Picking
- mid Jun – early Jul
Typical dates for zone 6b — set your zone or ZIP above for yours.
What to plant near Scarlet Keeper — and what to keep away
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Onions & garlicTrialed
Interplanted onions confused carrot rust fly in some trials and did nothing in others. Worth a try, not a bet.
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LettucePractical
Quick lettuce fills the row while slow carrots take their time.
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RadishPractical
Radishes sprout in days, mark your carrot row, and are gone before carrots need the space.
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PeasTraditional
The classic cool-season pair.
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TomatoTraditional
'Carrots Love Tomatoes' is a book title, not a trial. They coexist fine — just expect the tomato to shade them by August.
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DillTraditional
Same family, same pests, and mature dill is said to stunt carrots. 'Said' is doing some work there — but why risk it.
The badge is the honesty. Trialed = a published field trial · Practical = a real mechanism · Traditional = companion-chart lore. These pairings hold for every carrot.
Pairings compiled from University of Minnesota Extension, West Virginia University Extension.
Growing Scarlet Keeper — the things that trip people up
- Straight carrots need loose, stone-free soil — dig it deep and skip fresh manure (it makes them fork). In heavy or rocky ground, grow a short, stubby type or use a raised bed.
- Carrot seed is slow and fussy to sprout: keep the top of the soil damp for two to three weeks, and thin the seedlings so each root has room to size up.
Scarlet Keeper carrot at a glance
| Type | Nantes |
|---|---|
| Days to ripe | 85 days after you plant it outside |
| Color | Orange |
| Fruit size | Medium |
Extra fields from seed-catalog listings and university growing guides. Days to ripe and disease resistance shift with your climate and seed source — double-check with your local extension office before you buy.
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Common questions about Scarlet Keeper
How long does Scarlet Keeper take to grow?
About 85 days from sowing to a pullable root. You can pull them younger as sweet baby carrots.
What color is Scarlet Keeper?
Orange. The color runs right through the root and holds when cooked.
Can I grow Scarlet Keeper in a container?
You can, but give it a deep pot (10–12 inches) so the root has room to grow down straight.
Browse more carrot varieties →