🥕 Carrot
Hardy and drought-tolerant; sweeter after a touch of frost.
Carrot at a glance
Is Carrot frost tolerant?
Yes, through light frosts. Damage starts at -4°C and it is killed below -10°C.
What temperature does Carrot grow best in?
It grows best between 7 and 27°C. Below 4°C it stops growing altogether, and above 30°C it slows down.
How many days does Carrot take to mature?
About 70–90 days. That is a typical figure: it needs roughly 950 °C·d of warmth above 4°C, so a warm season gets it there sooner and a cool one later. The city calendars below give the sow and harvest dates for each place.
Is Carrot a cool-season or warm-season crop?
A cool-season crop. It does best in the mild weather of spring and autumn, and slows down in summer heat above 30°C.
What the numbers mean
These are the actual parameters this game runs on. Growth is driven by growing degree days: each day contributes max(0, min(mean temp, 30) − 4), and Carrot is ready when that total reaches 950. That is why the same seed takes a very different number of days in Dublin and in Guangzhou.
| Base temperature | 4°CBelow this, the plant accumulates no growing degree days at all. |
|---|---|
| Degree days to maturity | 950 °C·dThe heat budget it must accumulate before it is ready to pick. |
| Comfortable range | 7–27°CWhere it grows without stress. |
| Frost damage below | -4°CLeaves start taking frost damage below this low. |
| Killed below | -10°CBelow this it does not come back. |
| Heat stress above | 30°CAbove this the plant slows down and stops setting fruit well. |
| Typical time to harvest | 70–90 days |
| Yield per bed | 14 carrots |
Things worth knowing
- The first carrots were purple — the orange kind was bred by the Dutch in the 1600s.
- Frosted carrots turn starch into sugar as antifreeze, so winter carrots taste sweeter.
Where and when to sow Carrot
Pick your city to see the months when Carrot scores well against that city's real climate records: