Due to their intense orange color, carrots have always been associated with high levels of vitamin A and beta-carotenes. While true, there are also purple, red, yellow, and cream colored carrots, all packing their own nutritional punches, and in fact, the purple and red varieties may have an edge over the orange varieties due to their antioxidants. If you're looking to extract all that nutritional goodness from any type of carrot, cook them any way you like, to increase bioavailability.

Although carrots like the sun, they prefer cooler temps, and can be planted up to a month before our average last freeze date, as long as the soil registers at least 45 degrees. Consider planting these starts in a 12" deep pot, carefully dividing each cell into two or three separate clumps and spacing them three inches apart. You'll need to thin each clump to the single strongest seedling, then sit back and be patient. If you want to harvest true baby carrots (and not big ones whittled down to look like baby carrots), start checking for root development by scratching gently around the base of the greens. Harvest baby-sized carrots when they reach three to four inches in length. And by the way, don't be surprised if the color on the outside of carrot doesn't match the color of the inside!