Growing carrots in the open field on a garden bed is not a simple, troublesome business. First, you need to dig deep into the ground, plant seeds, ensure constant watering. Weed several times per season and be sure to thin out.
Agronomic farming technologies are in constant development. Born farmers get good yields of carrots without excavation and frequent watering. They possess the knowledge of preparation, sowing seeds, which ensures good, fast germination. What should be done in order to avoid unnecessary labor costs and grow an excellent root crop in the soil?
Sowing time for carrots
Seed varieties of carrots are different in terms of calendar maturity. The seed fund is divided into ripening stages:
- Early
- Mid-season
- Late
Planting the root crop gradually in several stages will allow you to get fresh root crops without interruption.
Carrots are sown three times a season:
- Early spring planting. The traditional planting date for root crops. It starts in April from the middle of the month and ends in early May. Seeds of early and mid-season class are used for consumption in the summer. These root vegetables are not suitable for long-term storage. In the last days of June, you can already use fresh vegetables. Autumn carrots are harvested in August.
- Summer landings. Root crops are planted from the beginning of the second decade of June. Seeds of middle and late ripening class are used. For the first time in the fall months, carrots are stored.
- Sowing before winter. It is better to place the sowing bed in a sunny place. Sowing is carried out in October after the fifteenth and ends in early November. The harvest can be obtained in the early months of spring.
How to increase the germination rate of carrot seeds up to 100%
Almost every summer resident has difficulties with the germination of carrots. Sellers as well as seed producers are blamed for this. The germination problem is often independent of the quality of the seed.
To ensure friendly shoots one hundred percent, it is imperative to carry out preparation before sowing. This is because the seeds contain ester oils. They prevent them from waking up during the dry season.
Get rid of essential oils by washing the seeds. To do this, they are placed in a bag of gauze or cloth and immersed in a container of water. The water must be heated to 45-50 degrees. The bag is intensively rinsed in water. The seeds are cooled and washed again in cool water. After these procedures, they must be dried by placing them on a cloth. This process can be repeated to improve the effect. Upon completion of sowing, good shoots are obtained, which appear on the fourth, fifth day.
Preparing the beds and planting seeds
Good growth of carrots requires a porous, loose soil. Is it possible to do without digging up the earth? There are several ways to prepare a ridge:
Mulching preparation. Preparatory work is carried out in the autumn. The ridge for carrot root crops is covered with: leaves, grass, weeds, tops of legumes, tomatoes, cabbage and cucumbers. The applied cover should be 20 centimeters. Before planting in the spring or summer, the mulch cover, rotted or caked, is raked from the ridge. The soil will retain its loose qualities and moisture.
Rows are made with a flat cutter or an ordinary hoe. A board 10 centimeters wide is pressed into the ground to make a depression one and a half to two centimeters. The row is watered abundantly and compacted a little. This will allow the seeds not to fall through and to sprout all together.
Seeds are scattered in a chaotic manner over the resulting wide rows. Moreover, they are evenly spaced, which cannot be achieved when sowing in a narrow groove. If in doubt about dense shoots, you should mix the seeds with sand and sow with this mixture. For this, 1 cup of sand and a tablespoon of seeds are enough.
The seeds are covered with a layer of 1 centimeter not heavy, loose material. It can be: humus, soaked vermicompost with coconut substrate, compost. It is not necessary to water the ridge before the emergence of seedlings.
The removed mulch returns to its place and remains there until the seeds germinate. When root crops emerge, it is raked up and removed into a compost heap or placed under berry bushes. Young carrots are re-mulched ten to twenty millimeters thick with freshly cut grass.
Green manure preparation. The preparatory work of the ridge is carried out in the spring. In early spring, mustard is sown on the ridge allocated for carrots. Sowing is carried out as soon as the weather allows this work to be done. For the first time in May, mustard is cut with a flat cutter. It stays on the ridge and is well spilled with the EM preparation. These drugs can be bought such as Baikal, Radiance and the like. You can also make this solution yourself. The ridge should be covered with a light-blocking film. Leave it in this form for 15-30 days. In addition, the mustard will help keep the wireworm away from the root vegetables.
Planting carrots is done in the same way as when using mulch.
Trench preparation. The job of preparing the trench is hard. This method requires compost. A deep trench of 30 centimeters is dug and composted. In this case, it must be mixed in half with sand. Wide furrows are prepared using a plank. Furrows are watered abundantly, after which root seeds are sown. From above, the trench must be re-laid with compost and grass.
Carrot garden care
The root crop is watered no more than twice during the period when the seedlings are small and weak. Watering stops with the onset of July. The vegetable must be given an incentive to go deeper in order to find the moisture required for growth. Subsequently, caring for a bed of carrots is reduced to one procedure: adding mulch once a week. With a weekly mulch application, you do not need to water, loosen, weed the soil.
In the ground, it is necessary to control the presence of moisture, as well as nutrients, and avoid excess. This will allow the root crops to form correctly, evenly without bifurcation and ugly shape. It is better to allow underfeeding than overfeeding the plant. At the same time, you should not do frequent feeding with ash, nitrogen fertilizers, add humus, lime under the roots and water too often. Otherwise, ideal conditions are created for carrots to grow on the sides and in breadth, because water from irrigation and applied top dressing are stored in the upper layer of the earth.
Many gardeners know how to protect root crops from various pests without the use of various chemicals. There are proven, simple methods to keep pests out of your garden. It is enough to follow these steps:
- Sow carrots after the disappearance of the carrot fly, when the cherry blossoms.
- Cover early crops of carrots with non-woven cloth.
- Practicing mixed crops (parsley, onions, other root vegetables) will confuse the pest.
- Sow carrot ridges with green manure in the autumn.
Harvesting carrots
Carrots, like any other root vegetables, must be harvested in a timely manner. In case of early harvesting, we risk getting unsweetened and not very tasty carrots. If we delay the harvest, the crop will be poorly stored and damaged by various pests. To determine the time of timely harvesting, it is necessary to calculate the date of the planned harvest on the seed bag in advance. In this case, one should be guided by the ripening period, which is indicated on the seed packet.
If the bag could not be saved, you must carefully monitor the carrot tops. If the leaves begin to darken, acquire large shapes, and the lower ones turn yellow, then it is time for harvesting. The time has come not only to collect root crops, but also to send them for long-term storage in the cellar.
