- rainbowgardener
- Super Green Thumb
- Posts: 25279
- Joined: Sun Feb 15, 2009 6:04 pm
- Location: TN/GA 7b
carrots, oh my! now what?
I let a couple carrots flower and go to seed last year. Now that bed is full of thousands of baby carrots all jammed together. I have no idea how I will be able to thin them!
- rainbowgardener
- Super Green Thumb
- Posts: 25279
- Joined: Sun Feb 15, 2009 6:04 pm
- Location: TN/GA 7b
Yes, I always leave some parsley to flower for the beneficial insects. The parsley doesn't seem to self seed so aggressively.
I wanted to see if carrots would come back and I'm glad to have them, I just wasn't expecting so many! It will take a lot of thinning and hard to do with them so tight together. I probably will start by just digging out some spaces so that I am left with spaced out clumps of carrots and then I can gradually work on thinning the clumps as the plants get a little bigger.
I wanted to see if carrots would come back and I'm glad to have them, I just wasn't expecting so many! It will take a lot of thinning and hard to do with them so tight together. I probably will start by just digging out some spaces so that I am left with spaced out clumps of carrots and then I can gradually work on thinning the clumps as the plants get a little bigger.
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- Green Thumb
- Posts: 588
- Joined: Thu Jul 14, 2011 5:19 pm
- Location: Pacific NW
you can simply cut off some of them rather than pull them. If you want carrots of any size they need to be no closer than 2" apart. Personally I would get rid of them, because regrowing them in the same place isn't the best idea and encourages disease. Generally, with carrots 3 year rotation is best. That is why I built 3 carrot beds as my ground in the garden is not well suited to carrots.
- GardeningCook
- Greener Thumb
- Posts: 787
- Joined: Wed Apr 29, 2015 8:35 pm
- Location: Upper Piedmont area of Virginia, Zone 7a
Take a tip from the golden oldie gardening guru Dick Raymond.
Using a regular straight metal rake, just draw that baby right across your thick bed of carrots a couple of times. Whatever's left will do carrots proud. It's painful at the moment, but the results along with the lack of having to do hand-thinning, will make you smile. Been there, done that.
Using a regular straight metal rake, just draw that baby right across your thick bed of carrots a couple of times. Whatever's left will do carrots proud. It's painful at the moment, but the results along with the lack of having to do hand-thinning, will make you smile. Been there, done that.