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Spongegirl
- Cool Member
- Posts: 81
- Joined: Tue May 25, 2010 10:56 am
- Location: Kentucky
ok what's the trick to carrots?
I keep trying to grow carrots from seed. Why are carrots the only thing I can't grow? What's their deal?
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GardenJester
- Senior Member
- Posts: 244
- Joined: Thu Mar 18, 2010 9:59 pm
try soaking the seeds for a day or so before sowing them. Carrots like sandy and loamy soil. I grow them in planters. after sowing the seed, I cover them with 1/4 inch of seedling mix, patted it down a bit, then keep it wet. The seeds takes a long time to germinate, about 21 days. you can also try making seed tapes with toilet papers.
Well, if germination is your problem, it could be you are sowing them too late. Carrots go in the ground in early spring, when it is still cool.
If it's obtaining the traditional carrot shape that's troubling you, think hard soil and rocks. As another poster said, carrots like soil that's loose and light. Perhaps screen the stone out and amend with some sand before you plant. Planting some of the shorter varieties also helps with this.
If it's obtaining the traditional carrot shape that's troubling you, think hard soil and rocks. As another poster said, carrots like soil that's loose and light. Perhaps screen the stone out and amend with some sand before you plant. Planting some of the shorter varieties also helps with this.
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Spongegirl
- Cool Member
- Posts: 81
- Joined: Tue May 25, 2010 10:56 am
- Location: Kentucky
I haven't been able to germinate them. My whole garden is made out of horse stall; that is, the shavings the race horse people use, mixed with manure. The whole garden is thriving! My tomatoe plants are taller than me, I have been eating squash for weeks, I can't wait for the okra...there's a lot more but I guess I can't sow the carrots now because of the heat? but wait, the package said sow them every two weeks until the end of summer. I got the little finger carrots and the little round ones.
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jal_ut
- Super Green Thumb
- Posts: 7447
- Joined: Sun Jan 18, 2009 10:20 pm
- Location: Northern Utah Zone 5
Carrots are the first thing to plant in the spring.
Trying to get them to germinate in hot weather is a challenge. An old timer told me to lay a board over them. This is to keep the soil from drying out and also helps to keep them a little cooler. You would want to check under the board often and remove it at the first sign of a germinated carrot. As the other poster said, they are slow to germinate. I know it takes 3 weeks in the spring, but they may come faster in warm weather.
You can't plant them very deep, so you need to keep the surface damp. This is a challenge in itself in hot weather, so the board makes sense. Cardboard or newspaper could be used I suppose. Soak them in water overnight then roll them up in a damp paper towell and put them in the fridg for 3 days then go plant them. Fool them into thinking they have had a cold period. Works on lettuce.
Trying to get them to germinate in hot weather is a challenge. An old timer told me to lay a board over them. This is to keep the soil from drying out and also helps to keep them a little cooler. You would want to check under the board often and remove it at the first sign of a germinated carrot. As the other poster said, they are slow to germinate. I know it takes 3 weeks in the spring, but they may come faster in warm weather.
You can't plant them very deep, so you need to keep the surface damp. This is a challenge in itself in hot weather, so the board makes sense. Cardboard or newspaper could be used I suppose. Soak them in water overnight then roll them up in a damp paper towell and put them in the fridg for 3 days then go plant them. Fool them into thinking they have had a cold period. Works on lettuce.
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HerbsHorses&Healing
- Newly Registered
- Posts: 4
- Joined: Sun Jul 04, 2010 7:45 am
- Location: East Longmeadow, MA
Hi, I have also had difficulty in getting carrots to germinate, especially in my regular home gardens, I always got 2 inch high greens with tiny baby carrots or none at all.
But whay works great, at the horse farm, is to grow them in a very old manure/hay/sawdust dump pile. I dig out all the weeds, and grass, and burdock (takes years to get rid of)(yikes) , then when it is relatively cleared, I have a 1-3 foot pile of pure beautiful crumbly compost. It is so soft that the carrots can grow straight down without anything obstructing them. I was just weeding yesterday and pulled up a nantes that was already 4-5 inches tall! Basically, I start in spring- mid April in ( Massachusetts) and just randomly sew the seeds by hand, I rarely bother with them, if they grow, great! I don't worry about rows or thinning. I do serial sewing throughout the summer too. Last year I threw some seed down randomly in August, and in late winter , early spring this year I found a whole bunch of small to medium carrots that my horses fuly enjoyed!
Also My most recent manure pile 3 years of collecting with 1 year of no new manure was made into a 15 foot round 4 foot deep tapered potato garden. I am so excited, it is my best garden this year!
So if you do not have access to a farm, and live in a rgular backyard, I would definately try a deep raised garden, at least 2 feet deep. Also buy three times as much seed as you think you need with carrots since they are so tiny and ? what the germination rates are for the particular seeds you purchase. Hope this helps. Plant some more and let us know. I'm going to plant some more this morning too! Good Luck! LP
But whay works great, at the horse farm, is to grow them in a very old manure/hay/sawdust dump pile. I dig out all the weeds, and grass, and burdock (takes years to get rid of)(yikes) , then when it is relatively cleared, I have a 1-3 foot pile of pure beautiful crumbly compost. It is so soft that the carrots can grow straight down without anything obstructing them. I was just weeding yesterday and pulled up a nantes that was already 4-5 inches tall! Basically, I start in spring- mid April in ( Massachusetts) and just randomly sew the seeds by hand, I rarely bother with them, if they grow, great! I don't worry about rows or thinning. I do serial sewing throughout the summer too. Last year I threw some seed down randomly in August, and in late winter , early spring this year I found a whole bunch of small to medium carrots that my horses fuly enjoyed!
Also My most recent manure pile 3 years of collecting with 1 year of no new manure was made into a 15 foot round 4 foot deep tapered potato garden. I am so excited, it is my best garden this year!
So if you do not have access to a farm, and live in a rgular backyard, I would definately try a deep raised garden, at least 2 feet deep. Also buy three times as much seed as you think you need with carrots since they are so tiny and ? what the germination rates are for the particular seeds you purchase. Hope this helps. Plant some more and let us know. I'm going to plant some more this morning too! Good Luck! LP
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gixxerific
- Super Green Thumb
- Posts: 5889
- Joined: Fri Jun 26, 2009 5:42 pm
- Location: Wentzville, MO (Just West oF St. Louis) Zone 5B
An interesting tidbit from above link Thanks G5.garden5 wrote:[url=https://www.carrotmuseum.co.uk/qna.html#growing]Here's[/url] some more carrot growing informatics courtesy of the the World Carrot Museum.
So watch your carrot intake, don't eat more than a few hundred a day.In 1974 one unfortunate English health advocate named Basil Brown consumed 10 gallons of carrot juice and took 10,000 times the recommended RDA of vitamin A in a period of 10 days. Those 10 days were the unfortunate man's undoing--his skin turned bright yellow and he died of severe liver damage.
