A common, unpretentious and very useful crop that every gardener has on their plot. However, planting and growing has its own characteristics, taking into account which you can significantly increase the quantity and quality of the harvest.
What affects germination
To ensure that the sowing period does not bring unnecessary disturbances, the gardener needs to carefully monitor the conditions for seed germination and carry out some agrotechnical measures. Germination is directly affected by:
- seed quality;
- ambient temperature and humidity;
- the quality of the soil taken for germination;
- sowing depth;
- watering.
Seed quality
At proper storage(in a cool and dry place) the seeds remain viable for 2-3 years. But even if they were stored correctly, you should not expect that all the seeds will germinate. On average, their germination rate ranges from 45 to 70 percent. In this case, you need to take into account how quickly they sprout - for carrots this is about 10 days.
Important! If you use purchased seeds, then it is better to buy products from reputable manufacturers from trusted suppliers: unfortunately, quite often you can encounter unscrupulous sellers.
Type of soil for growing
Since young shoots take most of the substances necessary for their growth from the soil in which they are planted, they are subject to certain requirements.
The soil should be:
- fertile - it is worth fertilizing it;
- loose and light enough for the sprouts to break through and grow even and beautiful;
- have a neutral reaction (cannot tolerate root vegetables);
- not be toxic (for example, due to an ultra-high dose of pesticides or fertilizers).
If you use purchased soil, ask your consultant which of the presented ones is suitable for growing carrots. If you are preparing the soil yourself, consider the above requirements. Carrot planting dates: choosing the right conditions for planting different varieties
Some gardeners sow carrots for the winter, and harvest the crop about two weeks earlier. This should be done in late autumn to avoid seed germination. However, if the winter is severe enough, the seeds may freeze and.
When planting carrots in the spring, you need to take them into account: it can be early (early ripening), medium and late. IN open ground planting material sown depending on the time of ripening.
Sowing early varieties
Early varieties can be sown when the temperature does not drop below +5°C during the day. Usually this is mid to late April.
Late and middle varieties
For medium and late varieties The optimal planting time is, in extreme cases, you can sow at the beginning. These varieties are suitable for long-term storage and are well preserved until spring.
Proper preparation of seeds and soil for planting
Carrots are quite difficult and take a long time to germinate. To make this process easier, it is worth paying a little attention to preparing the seeds. How to sow carrots correctly so that they sprout quickly?
Did you know? Carrots are believed to have first been grown in Afghanistan about 4,000 years ago: most of the carrots are still grown there today. various types vegetable.
To ensure that plants are less susceptible to attack, it is recommended to soak the seeds in a weak solution of potassium permanganate (potassium permanganate). 
When sowing carrots, a serious problem is that the seeds are very small and it is difficult to sprinkle them evenly into the garden bed. If applied unevenly, you will have to thin out the seedlings later in order to get a beautiful and bountiful harvest. There are more than a dozen ways to sow carrots, for example:
- mix the seeds with dry river sand (1-2 tablespoons of seeds per 7 liters of sand) and pour them into the beds, cover with a layer on top;
- sowing “on tape”: tapes with seeds applied are available for sale, but you can make them yourself by gluing the seeds to paper tape paste. The finished tape is laid on the bed and sprinkled with earth;
- coated seeds: very convenient, although not cheap way. Each seed is in a separate pea, which contains all the substances and microelements necessary for its growth;
- you can make a thin paste with the addition of complex fertilizers, mix it with seeds and apply it to the furrow using pastry syringe or plastic bottle with a hole in the lid.
Preparing the bed
Mark a bed approximately 1 meter wide by 5 meters long. Using a shovel or other tool, make several furrows 5-6 cm wide, the distance between which should be about 20 cm. Before planting, you can water the bed with a weak solution of potassium permanganate.
How to speed up the germination process
In order for carrots to sprout quickly, the bed must be well watered before and after planting. To create an optimal microclimate, it is worth covering the bed with polyethylene or another. Regular watering will ensure rapid growth and normal development of root crops.
Carrots do not require special care, but growing rules must be followed. It is a drought-resistant crop that tolerates frost and long-term cold snaps well. How to grow carrots? The secrets, like other vegetables, lie in proper agricultural technology.
It requires more care compared to other crops. Let's take a closer look at how to grow carrots in the country or garden plot with your own hands.
Soil preparation
You need to choose a bright place before growing carrots. The secrets are that with a lack of sunlight due to a falling shadow or uneven surface root crops lose sugar content and weight.
Before you can grow a good crop of carrots, you need to choose light and level soil. It should be sandy loam, light loamy, with good drainage. In dense loam, the fruits grow small, and during storage they are quickly affected by rot. Carrots should not be planted in acidic soils. It requires a neutral or slightly acidic environment.
Before you grow good carrots, necessary
The bed is prepared in the fall so that it becomes established. It is made loose. To do this add sawdust, humus, peat or sand. Chalk, lime, dolomite, and ash are used for liming. Manure should not be used for growing carrots, since the resulting root crops are not very attractive and do not store well. Humus should be added to poor soil - a bucket per square meter. If groundwater close, the bed is made high.
The arable layer is well formed with the help of green manure roots - plants that create a good soil structure. They are sown in the garden bed in the fall in order to plant carrots in this place in the spring. Worms and microorganisms also create good soil structure.
Carrot beds should be constantly changed. The predecessors should be garlic, onions, cabbage, potatoes. How to grow large carrots, if you have to grow the same crop in one place? The addition of wood ash twice a year in the amount of 0.2 kg/m2 followed by digging will help here.
In the spring, a week before planting, the bed is leveled, loosened, treated with a 0.3% vitriol solution, and watered warm water, after which they are covered with polyethylene film. During this time, it will retain moisture and warm up well in the sun.
How to prepare seeds for sowing
The germination rate of carrot seeds is low - 55-75%. In this regard, the seeds should be taken fresh. In addition, carrots do not germinate uniformly. After 2-3 weeks, the first shoots should appear. Seeds take a long time to germinate due to the presence of essential oils on their surface, which slow down the penetration of moisture.
Before growing, you need to prepare for sowing. Let's look at several ways to pre-germinate them.
Soak
The seeds are poured into cloth bags and kept for a day. warm water. The water must be changed every four hours. You can make a nutrient solution from it by adding wood ash (30 g/l). Afterwards, the seeds must be washed.
The method will be more effective if additional hardening is performed. Seeds in moist bags are placed in the refrigerator for 2-5 days.
Soaking with nutrient solution
Use a weak solution of potassium permanganate with the addition of ½ teaspoon of fertilizer per liter of water or a mixture of nitrophoska and boric acid(1/3 teaspoon and 1/2 teaspoon per liter of water, respectively). The seeds are scattered on gauze folded several times, and also covered with it on top and filled with solution for a day. The liquid level should be just above the fabric. Then they are washed with water and put in the refrigerator for three to four days.
If the weather does not allow planting seeds, they are left on the bottom shelf of the refrigerator, keeping them moist at all times. In this case, you need to make sure that they do not grow more than 0.5 cm.
Heat treatment
Heat treatment of seeds consists of their sequential immersion in hot and cold water. They are poured into a bag and rinsed at a temperature of 50 degrees, and then dipped in a humate solution and kept warm for two days. As a result, the germination of not only carrots, but also parsley and dill is accelerated.
Bubbling
Bubbling speeds up the seed preparation process. An air or oxygen supply hose with an emery stone filter at the end is connected to the bottom of a non-metallic container with water. A net with seeds is placed on top.
During the bubbling process, the water is saturated with air. At home, a small aquarium compressor is enough for this. The bubbling time for carrot seeds is 17-24 hours. Afterwards, the material is removed to the middle shelf of the refrigerator, where it is stored for 3-5 days. Before sowing, the seeds are dried for 12 hours so that they become free-flowing and sown.
Burying seeds in the soil
Dry seeds are placed in fabric bags and buried in the ground with a shovel to the depth of one bayonet, where they should remain for at least 10-12 days. Then they are taken out and sown in a garden bed. After such treatment, seedlings should appear within five days.
Another method is to mix the seeds with moist peat and keep them in a warm place for at least one week. During this period, they manage to germinate, after which they are sown. Before planting in the ground, the seeds are dried for 20-25 minutes on parchment or cloth at room temperature.
How to grow carrots. Secrets of sowing and care
Before planting, seeds that are most suitable for a particular region are selected and purchased. You can also get them yourself. Before growing carrot seeds, you should find a good and large root crop, and then plant it in the spring. By autumn it will ripen.
Carrots take about three months to grow. To get a harvest in September, planting should be done no later than May. Sowing dates range from the end of April to the first ten days of June. Planting before May 5 is considered optimal.
Before winter, carrots are planted when the soil becomes cold enough. This could be from late October to early November. The timing of sowing and harvesting depends on the variety and region. Northern varieties They should not be planted in the south as they will grow slowly. If grown in middle lane southern varieties, they produce abundant tops, but root crops do not develop. Some varieties bred abroad are poorly stored.
Must be done on time, otherwise beneficial properties and the shelf life of root crops may deteriorate.
Small carrot seeds should be spread evenly in the furrow. Therefore, they are mixed with sand or peat and sown in a garden bed.
So that neighboring rows do not interfere with its growth? To ensure sufficient illumination, it is better to make the beds narrow - no more than four rows of carrots.
Sides are made along the edge to prevent water from draining. The distance between the rows should be 15 cm, and for late varieties - 20 cm. The bed is watered with water and sprinkled with ash. The seeds are placed in the grooves at a distance of about 2.5 cm.
When planting in spring and summer, the swollen seeds are planted shallowly - 3-4 cm. They should be sprinkled with very light soil, which is chernozem mixed with peat, sand or humus. Then it is done over the bed ventilation gap from the film at a distance of about 12-15 cm.
The first shoots appear in warm weather within a week. If the temperature is below 12 degrees, the time is doubled. If there are empty spaces, additional sowing is done.
For many gardeners, the question of how to grow early carrots is problematic. It's actually not difficult. Carrots are sown in autumn early varieties to a depth of 2 cm, and then sprinkled with mulch to a height of 3-4 cm. In this case, the soil temperature should be below +5 degrees. When there is little snow in winter, the beds are additionally covered with it to a height of up to 50 cm. With this method of planting, the harvest is harvested earlier than usual by 2-3 weeks.
Plant thinning
How to grow a good harvest of carrots if they have sprouted perfectly? To do this, you need to carefully thin out the seedlings after the third leaf appears.
All this is not as simple as it seems at first glance. To ensure that the plants are removed well, the bed should be watered and the soil should be carefully loosened. In addition, the operation should be performed during the day so as not to attract the pest - the carrot fly, which flies in the evening.
The sprouts should be removed with tweezers, leaving a distance of at least 2 cm. The smallest shoots are removed. The tops are thrown away from the garden bed. Under no circumstances should you leave it nearby so as not to attract pests. A good deterrent is onion arrows, which are chopped and scattered in the garden. You can cover the crops with special material. The earth around the plants is slightly crushed. After 20 days, thinning is repeated. In this case, leave a distance of 6 cm between the carrots.
The row spaces need to be loosened and weeded (at least once a week) so that a sufficient amount of oxygen reaches the roots. After thinning the row spacing, you should mulch with compost or sawdust soaked for several weeks in a 2-3% urea solution.
How to grow large carrots? Needed here correct dosage fertilizers They cannot be added in large quantities at once. Carrot beds begin to be fertilized with mineral water when 5-6 leaves appear. The frequency of feeding is 2-4 weeks. This crop especially does not like excess nitrogen.
As it grows, the top part of the root emerges from the ground and turns green. This is not harmful, but the taste is worse. How to grow sweet carrots so that they do not lose their taste? When root crops emerge from the ground, they are hilled up, raking up soil about 50 mm high on them.
Watering carrot beds
Poor germination of carrots is primarily due to drying out of the soil. Until it emerges, the top layer of the bed should be constantly moist. Sometimes the soil should be watered even several times a day. Granulated seeds are especially difficult to germinate. Immediately after sowing, protect the bed with film so that the top layer does not dry out.
Until the roots appear, watering is done every 3-4 days, 3-4 buckets per 1 m2. At the same time, they independently grow in depth and find moisture. Therefore, watering is carried out once a week, 1-2 buckets per m2, and from the end of August - once every 1.5-2 weeks, 8-10 liters per square. The beds are kept without watering for two weeks before harvesting.
Rough root vegetables are an indication that they lacked moisture. When there is an excess of it, the fruits grow small. Sudden changes from drying out to excess moisture are also harmful, leading to cracking of the carrots and subsequent poor preservation.
Carrots are not afraid of cold weather, but at temperatures below 8 degrees, the starch in root vegetables turns into sugar, and the shelf life of root vegetables worsens. In the middle zone, the harvest is harvested at the end of September in dry weather.
Collected for 1.5-2 hours, and then the tops are cut off. The harvest is sorted, straight carrots are placed in a ventilated box in a dark and cool place. This could be a cellar or basement.
Conclusion
You will never be able to harvest a good harvest if you do not know how to grow carrots. The secrets of agricultural technology lie in proper soil preparation, proper landing and care. As a result, in the fall you will get large and even root crops.
Many people understand that gardening is a very difficult task, and not everyone is suitable for this type of activity. Here it is important not only to know how to sow, because there are often cases when diligence, endurance and patience are required from the gardener. This is especially true for the latter. And this is doubly true when you plant something so familiar to modern man plant like carrot. If the seeds of many other cultivated vegetables, for example or peppers, germinate quite quickly (they need about a week for this), then carrots can remain in a “dormant state” for a long time, forcing its owner to languish for weeks in anticipation.
However, there are several different way avoid this. The first, and easiest, is to soak the seeds in water. This is a very simple and very common method. They become swollen, then they open up and a sprout appears. But in this case there is one significant drawback. Wet seeds that always stick to your hands are not very convenient to sow. In addition, the chance that they will lie evenly in the bed is critically small. Moreover, this technique requires immediate care, since the soil must always remain moist. Otherwise, the carrot seeds will die.
There are also people who do nothing at all and just sow dry seeds. However, then you will have to face the problem of weeds, which will certainly appear by the time the sprout appears. You will have to thin out the seedlings, which requires a lot of time and especially patience, which not everyone has.
The next method is slightly similar to the first. The carrot seeds should be placed in a small rag, then folded and tied with string or thread (rubber bands will also work). After this, you should hold it under hot water. The temperature should not exceed 45-50 degrees. This can avoid both burns and damage to the seeds themselves. Perform this operation three times a day, for 2 days. Total: 6 times. But that's not all. Remember! They should not become dry between washes. It is recommended to place them on a saucer of water at that time. room temperature. After the sixth time, you need to spread the seeds on paper, the paper itself needs to be placed on the battery.
Some gardeners say that even after completing all these simple operations, you should not rush into sowing, since if early shoots thinning cannot be avoided.
This method is quite unusual and is relatively rare, because here. You should pour the seeds into it, mix and pour into the teapot. Since mixing will distribute the seeds evenly, the distribution of seeds in the furrows will also be uniform.
What follows is a very convenient technique that many recommend. The seeds must be mixed with sand (be sure to be dry!), then mixed. The resulting mixture is distributed along the furrows. After this, you need to water the seeds generously and cover them with a layer of soil. If everything is done correctly, the sowing will be uniform, and there will be a good carrot harvest in the fall.
There are also old method, which, however, some consider ineffective. The instructions are quite simple: pour water into a half-liter jar, cover with seeds. After this, you should take the mixture into your mouth, after stirring it, and spray the beds. It is believed that the seeds will be distributed evenly.
Very in a useful way A mixed planting method is considered, which allows for several harvests of early and late crops. To do this, mix carrot seeds in a cup with the seeds of another early crop, for example. After this, add a little dry sand so that the sowing is uniform. Then comes the sowing itself. Radishes (or any other early crop) ripen and are then harvested. However, this technique also has disadvantages. Since for good harvest not only is it necessary good soil, but also a combination of fertilizing, timely watering and loosening the soil.
Before purchasing carrot seeds, you need to decide how the carrots will be used. If you plan to eat the root crop in the summer, then it is better to buy seeds of early varieties. If carrots are needed for winter consumption, then it is more profitable to purchase seeds of late varieties.
The timing of sowing carrots directly depends on the timing of ripening.
- Early carrots are sown before winter and in the third ten days of April.
- Mid-ripening carrots in the first ten days of May.
- Late-ripening carrots are sown from mid to late June. Do not be afraid that the carrots will not have enough time to ripen. At proper cultivation Root vegetables will have time to ripen before October and gain sweetness.
You can plant carrots in different terms. Pre-winter sowing will provide the table with delicious crispy carrots throughout the summer. Regular sowing in May or June will help prepare carrots for the winter.
Pre-sowing seed preparation
Carrots do not sprout immediately, unlike radishes. What is this connected with? Everyone has noticed that carrot seeds have a strong smell. This smell is given essential oils, permeating the seed coat. Before planting carrots, you need to wash off the essential oils. To do this, carrot seeds are poured into a fabric bag or an old sock, tied and placed in a glass. They are filled with water at a temperature of 45-50 0 C and kept until it cools completely. The water, colored light orange, is drained and the seeds are poured again. The washed seeds are laid out on a dry towel to dry until free-flowing. Now our seed material is ready for sowing.
Before planting carrot seeds, you can stick them on a paper strip. A toothpick is immersed in glue, the seeds are caught with it and glued to the paper after 1.5 cm.
How to plant carrots in a row
Before planting carrots, you need to prepare the ground. From autumn on every quarter. m add 2 kg of rotted humus, half a matchbox of potassium salt and a full matchbox superphosphate. Doesn't like carrots:
- manured soil;
- lime;
- ash;
- excess nitrogen;
Carrots like to lay down on hard, compacted soil. In order for the seedlings to grow smoothly, the seeds must be sown at the same depth. To do this, loosen the ground with a flat cutter and lay the board edgewise, forming grooves. Water each furrow and begin planting carrots. The easiest way is with granulated seeds. The granules are laid out every 5 cm. Before planting carrots with granules, the beds are spilled generously with water so that the granulated shell gets wet.
What if you have the most ordinary small seeds? Seed material is mixed with sand in a ratio of 1:5 or a special planter is used. When sowing, try not to thicken the plantings. During the first thinning, by pulling out a weak sprout, we damage the delicate roots of neighboring carrots.
The sown seeds are sprinkled on top with a centimeter layer of dry soil, compost or vermicompost. Do not water the crops from above, otherwise a crust will form, making it difficult for the young to germinate.
Seeds can be planted with coconut substrate. The briquette is placed in a bucket and filled with water until it swells. Coconut substrate is very light and holds moisture well. Sprouts quickly make their way through it. Seed germination almost doubles.
Tip: practice alternating rows of carrots with planting onions every 15 cm. Onions will repel flies with their smell.
Planting carrots using the wide-row method. Sowing seeds using the wide-row method has worked well. Furrows 15 cm wide are prepared. A row of onions is planted on the sides to repel carrot flies. To form a row, place a board on the loosened soil and press down. A kind of rut 4 cm deep should form.
Dry or washed seeds are sown in spilled rows. They are mixed with sand or planted with a special planter. The carrots are covered with dry soil with a layer of 1 cm. The remaining rut, 3 cm deep, will be filled with mulch or soil as the root crops grow. In the light, the part of the carrot that looks out of the ground turns green, but we don’t need that.
How to plant carrots with sprouted seeds? To speed up the emergence of seedlings, carrot seeds are not only soaked in water, but also germinated. They are poured into a sock, soaked in a glass of water and laid out on a damp cloth. Gauze cannot be used - the emerging roots become entangled in its fibers and break off during sowing.
Before planting carrots with sprouted seeds, the rows are watered in advance and regularly moistened with a watering can until shoots emerge.
How to plant carrots before winter
Many gardeners are hesitant to take risks with carrot seeds, fearing that they will germinate prematurely or freeze. If you sow carrots correctly before winter, you can get fresh vitamins on the table all summer long. There is only one minus - carrots with winter sowing Not suitable for storage. You'll have to eat it all in the summer or freeze it for the winter.
The land must be prepared by mid-October. The location is chosen to be horizontal, without slopes, so that the seeds are not washed away by spring floods. The soil is plowed, fertilizers are applied and rows are cut to a depth of 4 cm. It is advisable to cover the furrows with film and press them around the perimeter with boards so that rainwater does not wash away the seed.
In mid-November, when the ground is already frozen, dry carrot seeds mixed with radish or lettuce seeds are sown. These crops will sprout earlier and mark the location of the carrot rows. The seeds are covered with peat, humus or dry sifted soil prepared in advance.
Do not wash or moisten the seeds, otherwise they will die. Also, you should not sow seeds in wet soil - the carrot seeds will germinate and the seedlings will die.
Now you know how to plant carrots correctly. Choose a method you like and get down to business.
