Carrots, perhaps, one of the most beloved and often grown in the suburban areas of root crops. It is difficult to imagine traditional home cooking without this colorful ingredient: many varieties of this garden culture can be stored fresh for a long time, representing an invaluable source of trace elements and vitamins in the winter season. Is it easy to cultivate carrots on your plot? Cultivation and care in the open field for this vegetable crop have a number of features. Despite the apparent simplicity of this process, one should not forget that carrots are a rather capricious vegetable. Unsuitable conditions, untimely watering or top dressing will result in a crop of fodder vegetables at best, instead of a smooth juicy carrot. Therefore, it is so important not only to know how to plant carrots with seeds in open ground, but also how to provide root crops with proper watering, care, and protect them from pests. When should sowing begin? What do beginner summer residents need to know to grow beautiful and tasty carrots? Planting and care in the open ground, methods of preliminary preparation of seeds and simple proven methods of protection against the natural enemies of this root crop are collected in this article.
When is it better to start planting carrots?
The time when to sow carrots in open ground, largely depends on the variety of root crops. Conventionally, they are usually subdivided according to maturity. It:
- early or early varieties of carrots, in which a vegetative period begins 50-60 days after germination;
- mid-season (from 90 to 110 days);
- late (late ripening) - from 120 days;
Certain varieties are quite suitable for winter sowing under the film. These include, for example, the well-established Moscow Winter, Amsterdam, Peerless, very tender Baby Sweet carrots, the Baby F1 hybrid, the cold-resistant Paris Carrot variety, and other early and mid-season varieties. The optimal time for winter planting of seeds can be determined independently. Summer residents, who have been practicing this method of cultivation for several years, recommend waiting for the first small freezing of the soil, 3-5 cm deep. This will avoid an untimely shoot. Germinate overwintered carrots can safely begin in the second half of April. To do this, a small greenhouse or just arcs covered with a film is installed over the garden bed, after which intensive watering is provided to the seeds.
The time for ordinary spring sowing, of course, should be determined taking into account the climatic characteristics of a particular region. Particular attention should be paid to such a characteristic as the ability to long-term storage. For juicy early ripe varieties, such as, for example, carrots "Tushon", "Lydia F1", "Minikor F1" and similar varieties, this quality is not important. For winter stocks of this vegetable, it is preferable to choose the seeds of carrot varieties that retain their properties for a long time: varieties of the Nantes, Orange Muscat and Fairy varieties, suitable for April planting, Chantan or any later varieties.
If you focus on the conditions of the middle lane, then for the cultivation of the first, vitamin-rich crop, early varieties of carrots are most preferably sown no later than the end of April. That is, starting from about 20-25. Juicy early-ripening varieties are perfect for this: Amsterdam, Orange Muscat, very sweet carrots Tushon, Lyubimaya, and others.
For harvest "in reserve" carrots should be planted no earlier than May, it is best in the middle of the month. In this case, it is recommended to choose varieties related to late or mid-season, but always with a long shelf life of all the properties of the root crop. It can perfectly “skim winter”, for example, mid-season carrots “Alenka”, “Nantes”, “Leander”, “Grenada”, “Vitamin”. Almost all late varieties are able to lie all winter with proper storage and remain tasty and healthy until next spring. The popular varieties “Red Giant”, “Queen of Autumn”, “Mo”, “Flacke”, “Incomparable”, “Saint-Valery” and other late-ripening varieties deserved good characteristics. Particular attention should be paid to the variety "Perfection", which has a high immunity to rot from moisture.
Stratification and germination
What tips from experienced gardeners should I take in order not to end up with a curved and tasteless “fodder” carrot? Planting and care in the open ground begins with the preparation of the seeds of this root crop long before it enters the ground.
First of all, it is worth paying attention to when the seed material was prepared. As a rule, summer residents use purchased seeds for sowing, or rather fresh “home” ones collected from last year’s harvest. If purchased ones are used, then before planting carrots with seeds in open ground, it is worth paying attention to the expiration date affixed to the bag with seed material: guaranteed good results in the form of an excellent crop can be obtained from seeds, which at the time of sowing are not more than 3– 4 years
Further, a reasonable decision would be to carry out preliminary preparation to increase the germination capacity of the seed material. This procedure includes pre-germination and stratification, that is, the period of seed aging in special conditions. How is carrot seed stratified at home? The whole process of preparation and hardening will take at least 10 days.
The first thing you need to do is soak the carrot seeds for two hours. Water should be neutral at room temperature.
After soaking, the seed material is evenly scattered on a damp cloth. Top seeds are also covered with a moistened cloth.
They should be kept in tissue until they swell. All this time the fabric needs to be moistened. Preventing drying of the seed material, they need to be gently mixed from time to time.
As soon as the seeds begin to hatch, they must be placed in the refrigerator. Quenching under such conditions is carried out for 10 days.
There is another, long-known method of pre-germination of seed material. To do this, the seeds are simply poured into a bag of cotton cloth and “buried”, that is, they are buried in the ground to a shallow depth for a period of about 10 days.
Where to plant carrots? Choose a suitable place on the site
To get a good crop, you will need to take a suitable place on the plot for carrot beds that meets all the necessary conditions.
One of the main needs of this vegetable is a lot of sunlight. Carrots in the shade are poorly growing and not very good in taste.
If winter sowing is supposed, then it is necessary to make a bed not only on the lit, but also on an elevated plot of land. This will avoid further erosion of seeds by melt water.
It is also important which cultures grew on this site last year. Carrots cannot be grown several years in a row on the same bed - the soil is depleted, giving the root crop trace elements, so the earth must be given "rest" for at least one to two years. In addition, the natural enemies of this root crop can be transmitted, pests can remain in the ground from last season. For the same reason, carrots should not be planted after parsley. Bad "predecessors" are also considered beans, cumin, dill, parsnip, fennel. Carrots grow best after cereals, nightshade (tomatoes or potatoes), onions, cucumbers, cabbage, garlic.
How to prepare soil for carrot beds?
Before planting carrot seeds in open ground, the ground should be prepared.
The site reserved for spring sowing, it is best to start cooking in the fall. It will be necessary to dig deeply and carefully, choosing roots and weed residues, to fertilize. After such preparation in the spring, you just need to loosen the area under the carrot bed again and proceed to sowing.
The earth should be light enough, loose, this will allow the root crop to grow well, while maintaining a uniform shape. Dense soil is best mixed with sand, compost, well-rotted manure or peat.
Particular attention should be paid to the level of soil acidity. An overly saturated soil negatively affects the taste of carrots. The optimal Ph level for growing this root crop is 6-7. The desired acidity can be achieved by introducing well-known products into the soil: dolomite flour, wood ash or chalk.
We form a bed: what distance should be between the rows?
For sowing, you need to make grooves with a depth of 2-3 cm at a distance of at least 20 cm between the rows. After the grooves are shed with a small amount of water, carrot seeds are sifted evenly and sprinkled with earth.
A few handy ways to sow small carrot seeds
The small size of the seed material of carrots creates certain inconvenience when sowing: light seeds are not easy to fill in the furrow evenly and not too often. Here are a few proven convenient ways to sow small carrot seeds.
One of the fairly popular, albeit patiently requiring, methods is to stick carrot seeds on toilet paper. Many summer residents prefer to spend several winter evenings, gluing seeds on a paste (it is most convenient to do this with a match or a toothpick) and drying the resulting paper tapes, so that instead of tiring sowing, put “blanks” on toilet paper into grooves and sprinkle with earth.
Stir the seeds with a little sand a lot faster and easier before sowing. This seed evenly scatters into the groove and does not stick together.
You can sow carrots in a potato starch paste. To do this, the seeds are mixed with such chilled potato "jelly" and poured into the grooves through the kettle and sprinkled with earth.
Make granules with seeds in the home way. Seed material in a special shell, not needing additional germination, surely every summer clerk met in stores. You can make such a “blank" yourself: cut paper napkins (toilet paper) into small squares, in each of which place a carrot seed with a drop of paste and a granule of a suitable mineral fertilizer. After that, you need to roll paper squares and dry. Such harvesting can also be done in winter and stored in a dry place until the start of the sowing season.
Fertilizers and fertilizing
Fertilizer must be applied to the soil before planting carrot seeds in open ground. This can be done even during the autumn preparation of the site allocated for the planting of this root crop. Of natural fertilizers, rotted cow manure is calculated well for this purpose, calculated at 0.5 buckets per 1 m² of land. It is important to remember that you cannot use fresh manure for fertilizing carrot beds: it will unnecessarily increase the acidity of the soil, which is why root crops will grow curved.
For pre-feeding, nitrogen fertilizers mixed with phosphates can also be used. For example, based on 1 m², you can add the mixture in the following dosage:
- superphosphate (granules) double - 2 tablespoons;
- dolomite flour - 2 tbsp;
- wood ash - 2 tbsp;
- potassium sulfate - 1 tbsp;
- saltpeter (sodium) - 1 tbsp.
Periodic feeding of carrots can be carried out using a mixture of mineral additives in two stages.
Three weeks after the emergence of seedlings, a solution is applied between the rows in the calculation:
- 1.5 tbsp. l of double superphosphate;
- 1 tbsp. l potassium sulfate;
- 1 tsp urea
- 10 liters of water.
After half a month after the first feeding, you need to make a solution based on:
- 1 tbsp. l azofoska;
- 1 tbsp. l potassium sulfate;
- 10 liters of water.
Feeding can also be carried out with an organic mixture - a solution of chicken manure with water (1:10) with the addition of superphosphate. The resulting additive must be insisted, and then again diluted with water 1:10. The resulting composition should also be made no more than two times.
Additionally, growing carrots can be fed with a solution of boric acid with water in a proportion of 1 tsp. for 10 liters Such a composition should be introduced twice a season: in the first decade of July and by the beginning of root crop ripening (early August).
Important! The prescribed dosage should be strictly observed using nitrogen-containing fertilizers. An excess of nitrogen during the cultivation of carrots leads not only to coarsening of root crops, but also contributes to an increase in the level of nitrates.
Watering Rules
Carrots, like many root crops, can suffer from overdrying of the soil, and from an excessive amount of water. Proper watering of carrots is to comply with the "golden mean".
Before germination, you need to water the garden with planted seeds often, but with a small amount of water.
Watering after emergence is required only once a week, not abundantly: the soil should be soaked with water no more than 30 cm deep. Excessive water is guaranteed to cause cracking of root crops, and if the beds are not spilled deep enough, this will lead to the formation of many small shoots and yield a crop of so-called hairy carrots.
Lack of moisture, prolonged lack of watering affect the taste of the crop: carrots become very stiff, lose their sweetness.
In excessively hot summer weather, watering can be carried out a little more often, as the soil dries up, about 3 times a week.
With sufficient humidity, experienced gardeners recommend abandoning watering about 3-4 weeks before the harvest of carrots. This contributes to the long-term storage of the root crop, and also improves the taste of ripened carrots.
Thinning, loosening, hilling
In order to collect even and large carrots from the garden, cultivation and care in the open field must include the removal of weeds, earthing up of root crops and timely thinning.
First of all, do not neglect the timely regular loosening of the carrot beds. Despite the fact that during the preparation before sowing, the soil was made as light as possible, after the first seedlings it is necessary to provide root crops with sufficient oxygen. Damp earth should be loosened after irrigation or rain, and very carefully. Tender fragile "roots" of carrots in this period are located close to the surface, inaccurate loosening can easily damage them.
With the same caution should be applied to thinning - an important "operation" that allows you to get a crop of large root crops. It should be carried out after the appearance of the strong first "leaves" of carrot tops. It is important to remember that with improper thinning, the remaining root crops can be injured, which will lead to undesirable processes and to the harvest of “horned” carrots. Therefore, you need to carry out this procedure according to the following rules:
- thin out only in well-moistened soil;
- it is necessary to extract "extra" root crops slowly, pulling them up, you cannot swing or sharply pull the root out of the ground;
- thinning is better in two stages: for the first time it is enough to leave the distance between root crops about 3 cm, after 14-16 days the procedure must be repeated, leaving the largest carrots at a distance of about 4-5 cm from each other.
Hulled carrots, covering the root crop with earth, is necessary to avoid the formation of a greened upper part. If this is not done, the solanine substance is formed in fruits with a “green stripe”, which during winter storage gives carrots a bitter taste.
Pest control: how to protect the crop from insects and diseases?
One of the main natural enemies of this root crop is considered a carrot fly. There are several simple, including preventive, methods of controlling this insect:
- do not leave the removed tops of carrots and weeds after thinning near the beds;
- mulch the growing root crops with clean straw or sprinkle the surface of the beds with one of the natural remedies for carrot flies: tobacco dust or hot pepper;
- it is recommended to settle onions as a "neighbor" next to carrots, its pungent smell also does not tolerate the fly.
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In addition to insect pests, there are a number of diseases that affect carrots. Here are the most common root crops lesions:
- Gray rot is a fungal disease. It requires urgent "treatment" - the treatment of all root crops in the garden with a disinfectant.
- White rot is a consequence of an overabundance of nitrogen arising from a large number of nitrogen-containing fertilizers. To neutralize this disease, special preparations containing copper should be added to the soil.
- Bacteriosis and alternariosis (black rot) are diseases that arise due to the use of low-quality seed material. They can be prevented by preliminary disinfection. Treatment - spraying with fungicides.
- Phomosis (or dry rot) is caused by fungal pathogens and practically does not lend itself to disinfection. Prevention is the preliminary application of fertilizers with potassium content.
- Felt disease manifests itself after the collection of carrots and prevents the storage of root crops. You can fight it with the help of spraying with fungicides.
Timely prevention and treatment of these diseases along with proper care will allow you to get a crop of smooth sweet carrots, which can survive until spring.