Post date: Aug 2, 2020 4:15:21 PM
Notes on Growing Carrots - Part 1 : Theory
1. Carrots are easy to grow if you get the season right. Tough to get a fall crop, but overwintered carrots is a sure success in Atlanta.
2. They are tough to germinate. So you keep sowing until the plants come up. Begin early August.
3. The sweetest carrots are the ones that mature in the cold. Carrot is a winter crop.
4. Carrots can take 70-100 days to mature. That is counting from date of germination. They can take 7-15 days to germinate.
5. Carrot seeds are fussy. They germinate in the 45-85 F temp range. They need consistent moisture to germinate. Can’t go dry. They also need some light.
If you expose to seeds to get them light, they dry off. If you cover them to keep moist, they are in the dark. This carrots have a poor germination rate. About 60%
6. Carrots need thinning. You can get a lot of leaves and no carrots if you don’t thin them. Each plant needs two inches of space for itself.
7. Carrots must be direct sown. They won’t form well if transplanted. You can try plugs. But they have to be put in within third leaf formation. Many transplants fail in the summer heat.
8. You can’t thin them when the plants are too young. If they get older, the roots won’t form well. So you use a fine pair of scissors to cut off the extra plants.
9. You can make carrot seed strips on paper. Stick the seeds with maida paste. Or buy carrot strips. Or get pelleted seeds. Recall poor germination rate while you are at all this.
10. There are many types of carrots to grow. All of them do well in the winter. Sow a batch of seeds every week from the first week of August to last week of September. Seeds available widely.
11. Carrots must mature fully before frost or Persephone, whichever is earlier. Half formed carrots will mostly not grow any further in spring. You can sow in Spring, but carrots maturing in summer taste like wood.
12. The soil needs to soft, fluffy and deep for good carrots to form. At least 10-12 inches. Carrots can be grown in containers. Keep evenly moist and sow in a distance of 2-3 inches.
13. If you sow now in August and September, you can overwinter them and enjoy your harvests all Spring. Buried carrots get sweeter with the cold and stay absolutely fine in soil.
14.To protect from pests, you intersow carrots with onions, leek and mustard.
End of theory. Will post sowing notes next.
PS: Many of you here have managed to simply sprinkle seeds as you went along, and without fuss ended with a basket of carrot harvests. Spring or summer, your carrots thrive. You will find these pointers too fussy and too detailed. These notes are for the less lucky ones.