Plant 2 to 3 weeks before the last frost date for your area. Fill the 13 inch round container with soil to one inch below the rim. Make 4 rows, 2 inches apart. Make rows ½ inch deep. Plant seeds evenly about a ¼ of an inch apart in each row. Cover with soil. Thin to one plant every 1 ½ inches once the seedlings are about 1 inch high. Early thinning is very important for all carrots. Do not wait too long to thin. Start harvesting in about 50 days. You do not need to harvest all at once.
The best way to harvest carrots from a container is to cut the greens off the top to 1 inch above the soil with a scissors. Turn the container over and dump the soil onto the ground. I like to place a sheet of plastic on the ground first so it is easy to pick up and reuse the soil. Break the soil up gently and pull the carrots out of the soil. By harvesting this way you will not break any of the carrots trying to pull them out of the top of the container. When you are done put all of the remaining soil back into the container. If you wait to harvest after the first frost the carrots will get sweeter.
If carrots are grown too close together you may get some non uniform carrots. Do not throw these carrots away. They still taste great and can be used for soups.
For some varieties of carrots such as a Yellowstone which is an imperator carrot, you need a larger, deeper container because it grows much longer than a Minicor or Vitana. For larger carrots you will also need to thin to every 2 to 3 inches depending on how big the variety will grow. Even though the Purple Haze is a larger carrot it grows very well in the smaller container.