Carrots grow in every garden. At least it’s a tiny little bed, but it’s there! Because it’s very good to go out into your garden in the summer and pick fresh carrots right from the garden! Today there are a great many different varieties of carrots. Some varieties are suitable for early spring sowing, while others, on the contrary, are sown before winter. Some people choose a variety with good preservation quality, while others prefer a high yield. But what unites all gardeners in their desire to plant carrots every year is the sugar and carotene contained in this wonderful vegetable.
Growing carrots is generally not difficult. But to get healthy, large, juicy and sweet fruits, you need to make an effort, not to mention the fact that you should first choose the right variety.
Each vegetable grower has his own carrot varieties, proven over the years. But every year, breeders develop more and more new varieties. And now it’s time to introduce a completely new variety of carrots - “Emperor” carrots.
Description
This new promising carrot variety has very beautiful, smooth fruits of bright orange color with a reddish tint. The shape is cylindrical, the tip is blunt, the length of the root is about 25 cm. The pulp is sweet and juicy, the core is small, the carotene content is high. Ripens approximately 100 days after germination.It stores well until the next harvest, and its taste only improves during storage. It tolerates transportation well, so it is of commercial interest. Light loamy and sandy loam soils are well suited for cultivation.
For growing Emperor carrots, a bed about 1 meter wide is suitable. Carrots grow best in place of potatoes, onions, tomatoes, cucumbers and legumes. After harvesting these vegetables, you can immediately form carrot beds, starting in the fall.
This makes it possible not to dig the beds in the spring, but simply loosen them with a hoe. If the soil is not loose enough, it should be dug up again and all the roots should be removed. The soil in the garden bed should be loose, at least 25 cm deep, since the carrots are located vertically in the ground.
This happens because it is very difficult for the main root to squeeze through the press of the earthen coma, so lateral roots appear. Over time, they become voluminous and here you go, the “horns” of the carrot.
To “fluff” the soil, you should add per 1 sq.m:
- well-rotted humus or compost - 2 buckets;
- peat and sand - 1 bucket each;
- complex mineral fertilizer or nitrophoska – 50 grams.
You need to mix the fertilizers with the soil thoroughly and leave them to settle for 3-4 days. But it is better, if possible, to do these procedures in advance, about two weeks in advance, to easily compact the soil. If this is not possible, you can simply knock on the bed with a shovel.
You can sow in the twentieth of April, after the snow has melted, making grooves about 3 cm deep in the bed, the distance between them should not be less than 15 cm.Mulch with peat and water thoroughly.
When the radishes sprout (and this will happen much earlier than the carrots), they will serve as a kind of beacon, marking the rows with carrot seeds, thereby significantly facilitating weeding the beds. Ripe radishes can be easily removed without interfering with the growth of the carrots. Carrots are good, and fresh radishes are on the table!
Rules for caring for Emperor carrots
- When the carrots reach about 3 cm in height, they should be thinned to a distance of about 2 cm between shoots.
- After the diameter of the fruit becomes 1 cm, another thinning is needed, but leave a distance between plants of 5-6 cm.
- You should take the time to weed, as now the carrots are starting to gain strength and nothing should prevent them from feeding from the soil. To do this you need to remove everything weeds, then loosen the soil between the rows, this will increase the flow of oxygen to the carrot roots.
- During this period, it is necessary to water, although not very often and not very abundantly.
During the summer (June and July), you can also feed Emperor carrots. Which gardener keeps chickens makes feeding based on chicken droppings. We also must not forget about loosening the soil. After the second thinning, you already have the opportunity to try young carrots.
How and when to harvest
Harvesting occurs in mid or late September.
After the crop is dug up, it is necessary to dry it in the air for at least a few hours, then cut off the tops and send it for storage or processing.
Carrots "Emperor" are a productive variety according to their characteristics. And these are not simple words: from one square meter you can collect up to 8 kg of exceptional root vegetables. Emperor carrots can be stored in a cool place for up to nine months, and losses are always minimal. The root crop remains beautiful throughout the entire storage period. Hence the conclusion: suitable for sale, since carrots with such external characteristics will always attract increased attention from buyers.
I planted Emperor carrots for the first time, the taste is good, but the shape of the root crops surprised me, like pencils: long, thin, 20-25 cm long, and no more than 1 cm in diameter. I didn’t really like this form, maybe I missed something when growing this variety?
Great review I'll definitely have to try it