The Field Guideby Moss & MarrowThe Field Guideby Moss & Marrow
Also called wortelen, bospeen, winterpeen, waspeen.
In the Netherlands, carrots are in season May to October, at their best in June, July and October. After the harvest, Dutch stores carry them until April. In November, Dutch carrots come from store or from under glass, not from the field.
Bunched carrots, bospeen, are pulled from May to October; the main winter crop is lifted in autumn and stored. Dutch carrots are available all year, but the bunched ones are the fresh ones.
Bunched carrots with fresh tops are from the field. Stored carrots are sold without tops.
Beta-carotene above all, plus fibre, vitamin K and potassium.
To get the most: Cooked carrots release more beta-carotene than raw, and fat is needed to absorb it: roast with oil, or add butter. Scrubbing instead of peeling keeps the skin's share.
On our nutrient density chart, a normal serving of cooked carrots (120 g) gives more than a day's vitamin A and about a fifth of a day's vitamin K, counting what your body absorbs. That puts them in the top 25% of the 244 foods we scored.
Content per NEVO, the Dutch food composition database. This describes what the food contains, not what it does for you.
Scrub rather than peel young carrots. Roast whole with cumin, or grate raw with lemon.
Scrub instead of peeling. The tops make a pesto or a herb for soup, and peelings, if any, go in the stock bag.
25 producers in The Field Guide sell carrots, according to their own website or shop list, each checked against our inclusion criteria and listed by province. Another 154 growers passed our bar for this food group; we have not yet recorded what each of them grows, so ask them or search the map.
Open on the map →Dates read on 2026-10-11. If a window on this page is wrong, tell us with a source.
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