Monday, April 24, 2017

First Decent Carrot Crop

Finally, finally, finally......carrot success! While I've successfully grown carrots elsewhere (in NJ in sandy soil), I haven't had the pleasure here on my homestead farm. But here they are.........


This variety is Danvers Half Long. I opted for a short variety on purpose because these were grown in a 10" deep cardboard box, inside one of the mini greenhouses. So they were up off the ground and protected from slugs. For soil, I mixed half Promix potting soil (recycled) and half compost enhanced garden soil. The garden soil had been sifted through 1/8th inch hardware cloth. 

Using fine potting soil stopped one of the main problems I've had with carrots in the past -- deformed roots. In the batch shown above, I got only 3 deformed carrots. Not bad, eh? In my previous carrot attempts out in my standard garden areas, just about all the roots were either deformed or tiny. 

I harvested these at 75 days post germination. I think I could have left them grow for another week or two. So next time I'll try 90 days post germination....an easy number to remember. 

Growing them in the mini greenhouse, they needed to be watered frequently compared to growing out in the ground. I watered them lightly practically every day. 

I'm just tickled to see that this experiment worked. Now I plan to sow a bit of carrots every 2 weeks so that there will be a steady supply of fresh carrots to harvest.


4 comments:

  1. "S" wrote in and said, "I have tried growing carrots here with no success....they were short, stubby little knobs and did not have much taste...Looks like planting in deep boxes and sifting the soil is the secret."

    Yes, I had the same experience. Small knobs, but mostly split rooted masses of roots. Horrible little orange colored things. Sifting the soil seems to have made the difference. Plus the constant even moisture.

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  2. Congratulations.
    I have been thinking about trying carrots in pots for a while,
    and will have to definitely do it.
    I've had little success in ground too - mainly because of root knot nematode.
    Just wondering if you know what your spacing was ?
    I was thinking a 3 inch grid, so 16 in the square foot containers I have.

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    Replies
    1. I used boxes that were 16" by 24". I did 3 rows down the length of the box. I spaced the carrots 2" apart in the row. Because not all the seedling produced, I ended up with 25 healthy carrot plants per box.

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    2. Thanks Su, that's about 15 square inch each.

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