What are your carrot growing tips?

[MrBig46]

Thanks for your post. I like that soaking overnight. I would like to do the same. I'm just waiting for it to warm up a little. When you sow the seeds, do you put them in the row where you poured the water before? Do you cover them with dry substrate and water them again?
Vladimír

[GoDawgs]

Thanks for your post. I like that soaking overnight. I would like to do the same. I'm just waiting for it to warm up a little. When you sow the seeds, do you put them in the row where you poured the water before? Do you cover them with dry substrate and water them again?
Vladimír

[mention]MrBig46[/mention] , it depends on the soil moisture. During dry times I have watered the furrow well before planting. Yesterday I just sowed the seed, covered them with dry soil and watered in because we have rain coming in today and tomorrow. But if Mother Nature doesn't cooperate, I'll keep lightly watering because once those soaked seeds pop you sure don't want them to dry out.

[Paquebot]

Don't let soil temperature prevent carrot sowing. The seeds are cold-hardy and can be sown into cool soil. This year, mine were sown on 3 March into containers. A week or so later they were under a good covering of snow. Now they look like I sowed grass seed for a lawn as they are so thick. As a result, we will be enjoying fresh carrots a month before most "normal" gardeners.

Martin

[MrBig46]

I want to sow carrots and parsley the way GoDaws says. That's why I have to wait for it to warm up. I will adjust his method so that it saves me the work of unification.
Vladimír

[JRinPA]

I will have to read this thread through. Usually I grow short and sweet or half danvers. I get some but some others split all over the place in the raised beds, chasing water. With the good dripline this year and some fresh Tendersweet seed, I thought I'd be good.

This one looked like a good candidate to sample. I'd say the end root might be through the bed and into the ground. But I'm not positive - it should be deeper than that.

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Neither tender nor sweet nor fair to behold. There are a few things I haven't figured out yet, and carrots is one of them. The tops look fine and between the carrots and parsnips there are lots of black swallowtail caterpillars, but come on, I'd like to eat these...

[Danny]

I think I shall be taking Martin's advice earlier in this thread, both as to Sugar Snax variety and deep pots, see how it works out down here.

[JRinPA]

I also tried some tendersweet in pots this year. However I did not follow all of his tips. Either I didn't read them all or didn't comprehend. I tried on a RGGS, but they don't get full sun. Also, I just used compost and not horsemanure. They are very straight but skinny and didn't fill out the pot.

A taller pot with holes on the bottom, dug into the ground, and filled with year old horsemanure with full sun is the way I understand it now.

I guess I can set tall buckets dug right in rows and rout drip tape overtop.

[Uncle_Feist]

After trying several carrot varieties over the years I have settled with the variety Bolero, it literally Trumps the others in seedling emergence, vigor, production and quality.

I generally start with pelleted seed sown, and lightly covered in shallow rows, then sprinkled with Preen before watering in. The carrot seedlings will emerge through the Trifluralin barrier, but it will stop most weed seed germination effectively eliminating competition.

My carrot crop generally suffers a few deformities, I don't know if the herbicide residue or the hard clay soil is to blame..

[Whwoz]

Sometimes forking like that can be caused by too rich a soil, although in that case I would expect more than the odd one to be deformed.

[JRinPA]

More successful carrots and parsnips for me this year! LOL yeah right.

I know some of the problem is I plant them and then never pick them in a timely fashion.

I did a couple rain gutter buckets this year, they were picked months ago, and they did not size up. I have not had success using Martin's bucket carrot method...there are lots of carrots but they don't grow big with the big ones squeezing out the little ones. I may try one more time next year. When I dumped the pots I bagged them as grocery store carrots are stored, plastic bag with lots of holes. They are still good months later, but that also shows how few carrots I eat.

I also did two rows of carrots and two of parsnips last spring, seeded with a cornstarch slurry. The carrots came up nicely, but the parnsips were spotty.

I just dug and picked some of those rows. They are behind the house and in shade all afternoon. There is about 1" of frosty soil, beneath that it is a beautiful cooler. I noticed that all the carrot tops are eaten off and throwing up new tops so I figured I'd check them and dig a few - I have no better place to store them than leaving them in the ground.

They came out as usual - some are good and straight, even five in one bunch, straight down. Some are twisted around each other. And others have roots going every which way. Same 2 foot of row of parsnips, same 5 foot of carrots. That is only 5 parsnips, they came up spotty, and that one on the right is all one plant.

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[GoDawgs]

The one problem I have with carrots now is not thinning them enough. It's hard to thinly sow the seed and I always try to keep them thinned, at least twice. But darn it, after that I seem to get busy with other stuff and so seed that wasn't up yet when I last thinned has come up and the rows are crowded. That means pulling pencil sized carrots to let the others get bigger. Gotta do better this year!

[rossomendblot]

The one problem I have with carrots now is not thinning them enough. It's hard to thinly sow the seed and I always try to keep them thinned, at least twice. But darn it, after that I seem to get busy with other stuff and so seed that wasn't up yet when I last thinned has come up and the rows are crowded. That means pulling pencil sized carrots to let the others get bigger. Gotta do better this year!

Carrots are definitely my least favourite thing to sow. Either you spend a lot of time sowing them thinly or more time thinning them out. Pelleted seed looks like it would be really useful but the varieties over here are extremely limited.

[greenthumbomaha]

My donation garden starts most vegetables from seed or directs sows rows. Carrots are the exception. They buy seed tape and put the irrigation hose right up against it They grow big beautiful Nantes. They also dump tons of site made compost and have fences to minimize the number of critters enjoying the produce. None of that applies to me. I am terrible at growing them!

- Lisa

[bower]

Another vote here for the importance and tedium of thinning!
I sowed Mokums fairly densely in a band about 3 inches wide this year. Expecting to do battle with Black Arion slugs which seriously have mowed whole beds of tender carrot seedlings in the past. I threw down some slug baits, which seems to have been eaten by the marauding voles, but I didn't have any slug related attrition - probably on the same account.
Carrot was the only thing voles didn't devour. But darn they were hard to thin. I did a bit on either end but when I found it hard to reach the middle of the row I gave up.
Nonetheless Mokum made lots of little baby carrots even where they weren't thinned, and I was glad to have em.
I too should have pulled earlier and more consistently, as there was a little splitting I could have avoided.
I spent the last months of the season pulling the bigger ones to make room for the small.
They are a delicious crispy carrot and I still have a bag of them in the fridge which I'm eating a few at a time.

[loulac]

I’m puzzled to see the vast quantity of posts dealing with thinning when sound techniques to solve the problem have been suggested, at least for lines less than 10 yards long. Of course, they have not been tested yet, it will be interesting to read posts coming in 2024…

[GoDawgs]

I’m puzzled to see the vast quantity of posts dealing with thinning when sound techniques to solve the problem have been suggested, at least for lines less than 10 yards long. Of course, they have not been tested yet, it will be interesting to read posts coming in 2024…

It's most likely a lack of execution that's the problem, at least it is with me. I tried sowing more thinly this fall and that helped a little but it's the thinning that needs more attention whether I like it or not! And not just twice but a lot more to catch the tardy germinators. I won't spend the extra for pelleted seed and it's usually not available for some of the OP varieties I grow.

[loulac]

I quite agree, usually testing requires some steps. I suggest always using the same precision adjustable seeder. It’s not expensive or can be made at home punching small holes with a nail in the lid of a box. Let us avoid trying to mix the seeds with fine sand shaking it, density will drive the seeds on the surface. It’s safer to stir the mix right and left with any kind of small stick. Wetting the seeds will not work, the seeds would get stuck together. Then we can work changing the proportion sand/seeds, the speed of sowing, the flow rate of the seeder. Earlier posts describe the steps to come.