Content
Carrots are deservedly one of the most common vegetable crops. It not only perfectly complements many dishes and homemade preserves, but also contains a huge amount of vitamins and minerals. Due to its beneficial properties, it is perfect for dietary and baby food. It is not surprising that most gardeners grow this vegetable on their plots.
But in order to get a generous harvest of carrots, you need to arm yourself with the basic rules for planting them. For example, you should learn how to prepare seeds and soil, as well as how to plant carrots with seeds in open ground. Inventive gardeners have come up with many ways to plant carrots that can make the task easier. We will look at them below.
Seed preparation
To spend planting carrots into open ground with seeds, you must first prepare them. Such preparation begins in the spring, immediately before planting.
Seed material that is more than three years old loses 50% of its germination capacity. To determine how old the seeds are, use the information on the packaging.If you collect the seeds yourself, you can tell how old they are by smell. Young seeds have a pleasant, pronounced aroma.
Carrot seeds take a very long time to germinate. Therefore, gardeners use some methods to speed up the germination process:
- Prepare a solution of ordinary kitchen salt. For half a liter of water you will need 25 grams of salt. The seeds are dipped into it for a while. Unsuitable ones will float to the surface of the water. Next, they need to be drained together with water, and good seeds are poured with hot water for 10 minutes. Then it is also drained, and the seed is immediately poured with cold water. Now the seeds are placed on a damp cloth or burlap and left to germinate. Before the sprouts hatch, you will need to wash the seeds twice. For the first time, ordinary water at room temperature is used for rinsing. Next time you need to add mineral fertilizers to it. For example, manganese or copper sulfate, succinic or boric acid are often used for these purposes. When the seeds germinate, they are dried and planting begins.
- This preparation begins 12 days before planting the seeds in the ground. The seeds are placed in a fabric bag and buried in the ground. It is important that the soil is sufficiently moist. Immediately before planting, the bag is taken out of the ground. Place the seeds on a dry cloth for half an hour and leave to dry. After this, you can immediately begin planting the seed. This method can significantly speed up the time of germination. The first shoots will sprout within 4 days.
- The third option for seed preparation begins 5 days before planting in the ground. In this case, the seed is covered with a layer of mullein and soil.Such a nutritious shell will provide the seeds with the substances necessary for growth. To prepare the mixture you will need 4 tablespoons of peat, 4 tablespoons of humus, 2 tablespoons of mullein and 2 tablespoons of seeds. All this is placed in a two-liter container and mixed thoroughly. Thus, the seeds are completely covered with the mixture. Now they are taken out of the container and dried on a sheet of paper. Immediately after this, we sow the seeds in the usual way.
Each of these methods will allow you to grow carrots on your site in a short time, since seedlings will appear almost instantly. Planting dry seeds will never give such quick results. Additionally, during preparation, the seeds receive the necessary nutrients.
Soil preparation
To obtain a high yield, carrots are planted in soil with neutral acidity. You can determine the acidity level of the soil by looking at the wild plants growing in it. Clover, coltsfoot, chamomile, and sow thistle feel good in such soil. Also, the soil for growing carrots should be light sandy loam and loamy.
Before planting carrots, you should not add fresh manure to the soil. Because of it, lush tops will grow on the plants, but the root crop itself will be small and branched. To avoid this, manure is applied under the previous crop.
Site preparation begins in the fall. The soil is dug up and fertilized. For this, humus and special mineral mixtures are used. If the acidity level is elevated, dolomite flour should also be added. In the spring, before sowing seeds, the soil is loosened and leveled.
It is recommended to add the following mixture to heavy soil:
- 30 g urea.
- 10 liters of ordinary water.
- 3 kg of peat.
- 8–9 kg of sand.
- 10 kg sawdust.
Before planting carrots, the soil should warm up to +8 °C. As practice shows, this time comes closer to the end of April. In the northern regions, it is better to start planting in early May. But in the southern region, seeds are sown even earlier.
Methods for planting carrots with seeds
For fast germination seeds, they are planted in moist soil. Additionally, you can water the hole with a weak solution of potassium permanganate. Some gardeners plant pinches of seeds 2 or 3 cm apart. Some people find it more convenient to sow carrots in a continuous line. Next, the furrows are filled with a mixture of sand and peat or with peat itself.
Then the bed can be covered with film. It is left until the first shoots hatch. This will retain moisture and heat in the soil, thereby accelerating seed germination. With this planting method, you will need to thin out the carrots several times. The first time the sprouts are thinned out as soon as the first leaves appear. After this, the soil should be watered abundantly.
However, not everyone likes to deal with such a sensitive matter. Moreover, it is a pity to pull out and throw away young and strong shoots that would give a good harvest in the future. Therefore, many are interested in the question - how to properly plant carrots in open ground so that in the future there is no need to thin them out?
Today, many ways have been invented to do this better. Such methods allow you to save seed material, and in the future get an excellent harvest.In addition, the appearance of carrots will only improve from such planting. These methods can also be used when planting beets.
So, let's look at the most common methods of planting carrots:
- For the first method, carrot seeds are sown together with seeds from fast-growing plants. For example, carrots are mixed with lettuce, radishes or spinach. Also add a little sand to this mixture so that the seedlings are not too thick. Fast-growing crops will sprout before the carrots sprout. They are collected from the garden, and the carrots continue to grow. Thus, there is enough space left for it, and plus, you can quickly grow the necessary greens, saving space in the garden.
- The second method is more labor-intensive. It has been practiced frequently lately as it gives excellent results. In this case, the seeds are attached to a paper tape using paste. You can also purchase ready-made adhesive tape. Of course, bonding the seed can take a long time. But you can involve relatives or even children in this process. But in the future, the beds will not have to be thinned, and this also requires a lot of time. To plant carrots using this method, you need to glue the seeds at the required distance. Then the tape is laid along the hole and covered with soil on top. After this, the bed should be watered.
- For the third planting method, a mixture of mineral fertilizers is also used. So in this case the seeds will also receive additional nutrition. So, mineral complex fertilizers and flour are added to the water. Then this mixture is boiled until a paste is obtained.The solution should be cooled completely. After this, seed is added to it and mixed thoroughly. The mixture is poured into an empty bottle with a convenient dispenser or into a pastry syringe. Then it is squeezed out, evenly distributed throughout the hole. In such a mixture, the seeds are at the same distance from each other, so you don’t have to worry about them sticking together. This method has many advantages, as it allows not only to plant carrots evenly, but also to further strengthen them with mineral fertilizers.
- To use the following method, you will have to buy a special seeder for planting carrots in a specialized store. You can make such a device yourself at home. Even an inexperienced gardener can cope with such a seeder. However, some argue that this method is not ideal and bald spots may remain after planting.
Planting carrots in granules
Every year new and new methods and ways of sowing carrots appear. For example, to make the task easier for gardeners, seeds already placed in the shell are sold. They are also called panned. Each granule contains one seed. The shell itself consists of a mixture of hydrogel and various microelements. Planting such seeds is very convenient, since the granules are quite large.
Such granules have a bright color, making them clearly visible in the ground. So it will be very possible to place the seeds evenly. Moreover, it is not necessary to plant them in a hole, as we are used to doing.Holes for seeds can be made using a regular stick. Here it will be much easier to determine at what distance to plant the seeds. About five centimeters are left between the pits. The depth of the holes should be no more than two centimeters. Next, we place 1 seed in each hole and bury them with soil. After this, be sure to water the garden bed thoroughly. This is necessary so that the granule breaks down and the carrots germinate easily.
Conclusion
We see that you can sow carrots not only in the usual way for many, by planting dry seeds in a hole. Today, there are more effective methods that will save time and seed. Plant carrots So it's a pleasure. And you can get even more pleasure from harvesting a generous harvest. Using the methods described above, you can achieve excellent results and grow wonderful carrots that will delight you and your loved ones.
