How to get a rich harvest of carrots

We grow large, even root crops with excellent taste: seeds, timing, agricultural technology

Everyone who has a vegetable garden grows carrots - both for home canning and for storing them for winter storage. This culture is quite whimsical, not always and not everyone succeeds in getting even, beautiful and tasty root crops. Experienced FORUMHOUSE gardeners believe that the harvest mainly depends on the timing and methods of planting. We will tell you when and how the best vegetable growers of our portal plant carrots in order to get a guaranteed good harvest.

Watering and soil

The most important conditions for a good harvest of carrots are loose soil and sufficient, even abundant, watering. Good carrots cannot be grown in heavy, loamy soil. Pebbles and earthy lumps also interfere - if the carrot root meets them on the way of its growth, it will bend to go around the obstacle.

The soil for carrots is loosened by adding sand with organic addition. Since autumn, rotted manure is brought into the garden bed with sides, dug deeply, sprinkled with wood ash on top and plant residues are laid to the edges of the sides. Cabbage leaves, daikon tops, etc. are great. The "filling" is watered with Baikal. Cover with foil and leave until spring. In the spring, after removing the film, we will get a loose bed, one hundred percent suitable for planting carrots.

Carrot seeds need a lot of moisture to thrive. For many years, it was generally believed that carrots should be sown literally in the mud, but springs have gone unpredictable, spring moisture dries quickly, and frequent watering can wash carrot seeds out of the grooves. Now literate gardeners, as a rule, do this: they shed the grooves well during sowing and cover them with some material that will keep moisture in the ground, and do not water until the shoots appear.

Samarinka lives in a region where winds dry the earth like a hair dryer, and watering after planting leads to the formation of an earthen crust through which it is very difficult for sprouts to break through. Therefore, she plants carrots with a hydrogel - this allows the seeds to remain in a moist environment for a long time.

A day before planting, she soaks the seeds in water and changes it several times - this helps to "wash" essential oils from the seeds that interfere with germination. A day later, the water is poured out, the seeds remain in a damp napkin, at this time the bed is being prepared: the grooves are sprinkled with vermicompost, well watered with warm water and covered with white garden hydrogel.

Carrot seeds are laid out on top of the hydrogel and covered with earth.

Samarinka

Participant FORUMHOUSE

I do not water! The moisture in the hydrogel is enough for her to ascend.

The bed is covered with foil until germination - usually for a week or a little more. In general, sometimes you have to wait about a month for carrot shoots.

People who have been growing carrots for a long time come to the conclusion that it is better to sow seeds more often, about a centimeter away. Of course, then you have to thin out, but the chances of a good harvest grow with labor costs.

FORUMHOUSE member Velem sheds a furrow, sows often carrot and, without watering, falls asleep with sand. With this method of planting, it is easier to thin out later: you can see which shoots are strong, promising, and which ones will be of no use. And it is better, indeed, to spend an extra hour on thinning than to then dig out stunted curves "tails".

Landing dates

Carrots can be sown in two periods: for summer consumption and winter storage. Since this culture is not afraid of the cold, sowing it usually opens the garden season. Feel free to sow carrots as early as possible.

Velem

FORUMHOUSE member

I try to plant at the end of April, even with snow. Always excellent carrots.

Planting in two terms helps save carrots from their main pest, the carrot fly. If there is such a problem, it is better to sow early, April or May carrots in a bed with sides and immediately tighten it with lutrastil with a density of 17. Lutrastil can be fixed with buttons, it is not removed until the tops have grown so much that they begin to support the fabric. Watering is done directly through the lutrastil. When you remove the shelter, do not forget to loosen the ground and you can assume that you have provided yourself with the harvest of early carrots.

Carrots for winter storage are sown immediately after the cherry blossoms, after Trinity. By this time, the carrot fly is already flying out, you do not need to cover the garden. There is no need to be afraid that the carrots will not have time to grow - they will. At the end of September, or at least the beginning of October, you will reap a full harvest.

As for the joint planting of carrots and onions - according to the experience of FORUMHOUSE users, they fully justify themselves. Carrots protect onions from onion flies, onions save carrots from carrots. When these crops are planted separately, the result is always worse.

Seeds in granules

Many summer residents have already experienced a fascination with pelleted carrot seeds: they planted several times, were disappointed and sworn - it often turned out that the granules sprout much worse than ordinary seeds.

Sowing carrots with granules really has several subtleties. The main thing is to create conditions under which the seed coat will quickly dissolve. It is best to do this: it is very good to spill the grooves with boiling water, spread the seeds, water the grooves again, with just hot water. The granules should begin to melt right before your eyes - after that you can safely cover the grooves with earth.

The idea of ​​pelleting itself is good: sowing small seeds is facilitated, their consumption is reduced, and when germinating, the seeds receive all the necessary trace elements that are contained in the granule. But this method is not the best for carrots. The seeds contain a large amount of essential oils that delay germination - carrots "sit for a long time", sometimes you have to wait for seedlings for a whole month. In addition, carrot seeds lose their germination quickly, faster than many other crops, and are not suitable for long-term storage.

Marishka

Participant FORUMHOUSE

The chemical composition of the shell, which the seeds are coated with, must have a strictly defined composition in order to pass moisture, decompose essential oils, etc. Now imagine what will happen if the seed producer takes 3-year-old seeds (germination rate ~ 55%) and introduces some kind of "gag" into the shell.

As a result, most of the members of our portal, growing carrots, refused pelleted seeds. Regular seeds "work" better.

Quail

Participant FORUMHOUSE

I will not mess with granules anymore – It is easier for me to thin out the crops and be confident in the harvest than to wait for the shoots and lose the harvest.

Seeds in a ribbon

Ready-made, "shop" tapes with seeds are also not very popular among vegetable growers of our portal, because before sowing it is better to put all the seeds in water for a while, but with the seeds in the belt, this is not do it. But the "tape method" itself is very good, therefore many members of our portal cut the tapes of toilet paper with their own hands and stick the already swollen seeds on them.

Sugar

Participant FORUMHOUSE

Seed consumption – minimum (prices for good varieties are now high, and there are very few seeds in a pack to throw them around). And it is convenient to thin out: I pulled out the already grown carrot through one and ate it.

In order for carrot ribbons to be guaranteed to yield a harvest, the following rules must be observed:

• Just in case, stick the seeds more often, you can at a distance of 1 cm from each other (especially if you are not sure about the quality of the seeds).
• Make the paste as liquid as possible so that it can be easily soaked later, otherwise it can delay the emergence of seedlings.
• You can add ant poison and a little salt to the paste.
• If pre-wetted, swollen seeds are glued to the tape, this will increase germination. But such tapes are stored in the refrigerator for no more than a week.
• Shed well before planting.
• Lay the ribbons with the seeds down.
• After planting, cover the bed until friendly shoots appear.

Member of our portal Oksana2303 makes tapes like this: drips three lines of paste droplets onto the paper at a distance of 2.5 cm from each other, picks up seeds with a damp toothpick, places them 2-3 pieces per droplet and covers them with a second layer on top paper. He dries the tape, folds it, signs it and stores it until spring.

Oksana2303

Participant FORUMHOUSE

When planting, I cut off the "wheel" with one line, unfold in the groove and shed well. From the very first experience I realized that 2 grams of carrot seeds – that's a LOT!

Mistakes in growing carrots

We have collected for you the most common mistakes that beginners make when growing carrots.

• If carrots of early ripening are overexposed in the ground, they will be "hairy".
• If the carrots are not watered for a long time, and then watered, they will crack.
• If the carrots do not huddle, do not cover the heads sticking out of the ground with earth, a tasteless green rod forms inside the root crop.
• If the ground is too "greasy", carrots grow uneven and tasteless.

And some more useful tips

Mvi1006

FORUMHOUSE member

Germinate in a bubbler until peeling, mix with gel (methylcellulose or jelly) in a 2-3 liter plastic bottle, apply through a silicone sealant spout into the grooves on the garden bed.

Dorina_Panchenko

Participant FORUMHOUSE

And for three years now I have been planting carrots as follows - before planting, I soak the seeds in ordinary vodka for 20 minutes, then rinse them, dry them slightly and mix with sand or dry tea leaves sachets. You can add Ava fertilizer directly to the mix. I make furrows with a slat so that the soil is compacted at the bottom of the groove, I sow seeds in the usual way, not too thick and not rarely - as it turns out, I sprinkle all this with moist earth and lightly press the earth with my palm so that the earth adheres more tightly to seeds.

Before planting, you can shed furrows with water, depending on the condition of the soil. Shoots appear in a week! Carrots emerge with a friendly brush. I have never seen such seedlings before. The fact is that vodka dissolves the essential oils of carrots, which prevent seeds from germinating. The same method applies to all seeds that smell like dill, parsley, etc.

Helpful advice? Like it!

At FORUMHOUSE you will learn how to grow in one greenhouse vegetables incompatible with each other, you can read an article about how to store vegetables until the next harvest, watch a video on how properly prepare for the summer season.