Carrots do best grown outside in the garden. I haven't heard of them grown indoors in buckets before. However, seeds grown indoors need light from both the warm and cool spectrum. That's what grow lights provide, although they're a bit expensive. Otherwise, pick up a florescent fixture that holds two tubes and buy a cool light tube and a warm light tube. (These fixtures are often available at second hand stores for next to nothing.) Suspend the light on adjustable chain about 4 inches from the top of your plants. Plants grown from seed indoors need to have light for 14 hours a day. If you put this on a timer it makes life a lot easier for you. Good luck! (Because carrots have long tap roots, they don't take to being transplanted into the garden. This is why you won't see them available for sale in nurseries in the spring.)

Thanks for the advice.
I have no intention of transplanting them... they will be moved outside when the weather permits and they are a little more developed.
The buckets I have placed them in should have adequate depth being more than twice the expected length of the carrots at maturity.
I do agree that light is an issue and will purchase another fixture asap.
Do you think it would hurt to add soil to the base of the stems to prop them up a bit?

Carrots are a cool weather crop.

Are you sure the soil in the bucket will stay cool enough?

Just a thought
keriann~

It is an interesting experiment let us know how it turns out. Al

As any one who grows carrots knows, the time required for germination is longer than for most. Grown in the garden as they usually are, by the time the carrot emerges the area is covered with weeds an inch or two high. Commercially carrots are grown in double rows on berms, and planted in the fall. Before the carrots emerge while the weeds are only a haze on the soil, the whole area is sprayed with a herbicide which eliminates the weed growth without affecting the carrots. It is amazing to see acres of carrots without a weed. Al

I'm growing indoor carrotts for the first time this year. My seedlings sprouted to now I am waiting to see if they develop. I started them in a grownbox and they are under shop lights. I hope they take off!

the whole area is sprayed with a herbicide which eliminates the weed growth without affecting the carrots. It is amazing to see acres of carrots without a weed. Al
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Al please tell me the name of that herbicide I can spray to prevent weeds from growing and does not affect the vegetable. I sprayed "Total Kill" and waited for 5 days as the label said and planted the seed unfortunately Nothing came up either seeds or weeds. If there is a herbicide which prevents the weed from growing without hurting the seeds this will be a dream came true.

I have the exact same problem -- mine are also in buckets, but I'm growing them outside, so I don't think the problem is that they are being grown indoors, or that you're lighting them artificially.

Did your soil settle a lot since the original planting? My suspicion has been that either (a) I didn't plant the seeds deep enough, (b) the soil was too loose and is settling below their leaf line with watering, or (c) when I thinned, I thinned by leaf size -- I found that the sprouting plants with smaller leaves that I pulled out had much deeper roots, so perhaps waiting to thin until the plants reach this stage is better than thinning early by leaf size.

Do not mistake a pre-emergent with a herbicide. The best known herbicide is sold as Roundup. It only works by being absorbed by growing foliage, it does not affect seed which has not germinated. During the 1950s herbicide was sprayed on fields by aircraft, but because of lawsuits from neighboring property owners from crop damage caused by drifting herbicide the practice was stopped and it is now sprayed by on the ground sprayers. There is also soil sterilizers which prevent growth in the soil for up to a year. Total Kill sounds like one of those. Al