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Carrots are perhaps the most popular root vegetable in our Russian garden plots. When you look at these delicate, green beds, your mood lifts, and the tart smell of carrot tops invigorates. But not everyone gets a good carrot harvest, but only those who try to adhere to the basic rules when growing this wonderful root vegetable and know what “right” varieties to plant. One of these varieties is Canterbury F1 carrots. You can see what it looks like in the photo below:
Description of the variety
Canterbury carrot F1 is a hybrid from Holland; its ripening period is medium-late (110-130 days from germination). The fruit is of medium length, shaped like a cone with a slightly pointed tip. The weight of one fruit is from 130 to 300 grams, sometimes reaching 700 grams. The pulp is dark orange in color with a small core, merging in color with the pulp. Loose, fertile, light loamy or sandy loam soil with a lot of humus is suitable for cultivation. The soil should not be clayey or heavy loamy, since the dense crust that forms during drying serves as an obstacle to seed germination. Because of this, the carrots rise unevenly.
However, in order for the plant to actively grow and develop properly, watering is necessary. Canterbury F1 carrots tolerate bad weather well and are resistant to diseases and pests such as carrot flies. The variety is high-yielding (about 12 kg per 1 sq.m.), a distinctive feature is a long storage time with minimal losses.
Choosing the “right” variety is only half the battle. The most important thing is yet to come. And it all starts with choosing the right place to plant Canterbury carrots.
Where should you make a bed for carrots?
Carrots of any variety love the sun. Lighting a carrot bed is of great importance for obtaining a good harvest. If Canterbury F1 carrots grow in a shaded area, this will affect the yield and taste for the worse. Therefore, the area where the carrot bed is supposed to be located must receive sunlight throughout the day.
In addition, it is important what crops grew in a given place before.
Carrots cannot be grown after:
- parsley;
- dill;
- parsnip;
- celery.
Carrots can be planted after:
- tomatoes;
- cucumbers;
- Luke;
- garlic;
- potatoes;
- cabbage
When to sow carrots
It is very important to plant Canterbury F1 carrots on time. The sowing time affects the harvest. Each variety has its own ripening period. Canterbury F1 carrots reach technical maturity in 100-110 days, and fully ripen only after 130 days. This means that the seeds should be sown at the end of April, as soon as the soil allows. Or you can sow it before winter, then the ripening period may decrease, and it is possible to harvest the crop earlier.
Preparing seeds for spring sowing
First you need to prepare the seeds in order to discard non-germinating and diseased ones.You can use regular soaking. To do this, they should be placed in warm water. After 9-10 hours, all unusable seeds will appear on the surface of the water. They need to be collected and thrown away. Dry the remaining seeds, but do not overdry so that they remain slightly moist. And if you want to taste these fruits early, you can speed up the germination process by placing them on a damp cloth or gauze and keeping them for 3-4 days at a temperature not lower than 20°C. Soon the seeds will begin to hatch and even roots will appear. You can plant a small plot of land with this seed material to start eating fresh Canterbury F1 carrots at the end of May.
Preparing the soil for spring sowing
Canterbury F1 carrots grow best in loose, fertile, light soil. If the soil is not loose enough, the carrots will grow clumsy; they may be large, but ugly and inconvenient to process. According to experienced gardeners, it is better to prepare the carrot bed in the fall, then in the spring all that remains is to loosen it. When digging the ground, humus and wood ash should be added.
Conditions for sowing seeds
- You need to choose a dry, windless day so that the wind does not scatter them throughout the garden.
- Just before sowing Canterbury F1 carrot seeds, you should make not very deep furrows (1.5-2 cm) at a distance of about 20 cm on loosened soil.
- Irrigate the grooves with sufficient warm water.
- Spread the seeds, adjusting the distance between them to 1-1.5 cm. Planting too often will cause the fruits to grow small.
- Level the furrows and lightly tamp the soil with your hand.
The photo below shows how the grooves should be made:
To speed up the emergence of seedlings, you can cover the bed with film or covering material.
Thinning, timing and number of times
To eat tasty, sweet, large and beautiful carrots, you need to regularly cultivate the soil, that is, weeding and thinning. It happens that weeding needs to be done even before germination. How to do this without harming the plants?
There is one simple and useful way: when sowing carrot seeds, while the furrows are not yet sealed, sow radishes between them. Radishes grow much faster, so you can get two crops of different root crops from one bed. And when weeding the beds, the radishes will serve as a guide.
For the first time, Canterbury F1 carrots should be thinned when true leaves appear. You should leave about three centimeters between plants. The second thinning occurs somewhere in early to mid-June, when the diameter of the fruit becomes at least 1 cm. This time there should be approximately 5-6 cm between the plants.
The Canterbury F1 carrot variety is easy to care for and stores well until the next harvest.
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