What has happened with my carrots?

[rob the roller]

I grow carrots in raised planters. The planters are actually a composting system consisting of square sections about 6" deep. The idea seems to be to put the first section or two down, put in your garden waste and stick the lid on. You can add further sections as more waste comes in. I put three sections together to make a planter about 1'6" deep and filled it almost to the top with growing medium, and this seems to deter the carrot fly, and also the slugs, at least until the crop is well established.

I sowed the first of these more or less broadcast rather than in rows back in the spring. I have taken the odd carrot or two since then, and recently decided to clear out the lot. It was a mixed bag. There were a number of mature carrots of good length and size, and the remainder ranged between short and thin, short, tiny, pretty well the whole gamut between seedling and mature root.

What has happened? I can think of three possibilities. One, the long roots germinated first and the others later. If that was the case, had I had taken only the long roots the shorter ones would have gone on to develop into something larger.

A second possibility is that they all germinated more or less at the same time, but some failed to develop and remained at the seedling stage presumably due to overcrowding. If so, would this be a state of dormancy? If the larger roots only were pulled, would the smaller ones suddenly think hey, there's more room here, let's fill out a bit?

It might also be some combination of the two, i.e. some of the undersize roots germinated with the long roots but failed to develop, others simply waited in the soil and germinated later in the year.

Can anyone throw any light on this? Is it worth making the effort to remove only long roots and leave the shorter roots in situ, or are the short roots unlikely to develop any further? Also, it is difficult to remove a large root without affecting the surrounding soil, so if the smaller roots are displaced can they be put back to develop successfully?

All advice gratefully received!

Thank you.

Rob

[Two_Sheds]

Carrots grow best in poor, sandy soil. They dislike rich soil and too much nutrient.

If you sow too closely together, pull the largest and leave the rest to grow bigger

Carrots won't be putting on any more growth now, it's winter

[Wren]

Even when you sow carrot seed all at the same time germination can be very slow and sporadic. Seed that was direct sown into the ground early this year in the south half o England were subjected to 6 weeks o drought at the crucial stage , some seed germinated through watering an other seed sat dormant only to produce life once the rain water supply picked up a bit. Growing carrots in containers is no different if your watering is a bit hit an miss too. I think your immature carrot seedlings just germinated at a slower rate than the others. It happens *shrugs*

Wren

[gojiberry]

I have had the same problems although there ar enough carrots to keep us going for a while yet. I am going to try and alleviate some of the problems next year by station sowing rather than broadcasting. I just didn't sow them thin enough this year.

Ian

[Two_Sheds]

station sowing rather than broadcasting.

I like to do a small pinch every 2-3" in a line. It's easier to see weeds than if you broadcast too.

I also sow another pinch as and when I harvest (early summer)

[womble]

I tried various different types of line, station and broadcast sowing, so I can tell you my findings.

To get the most from a small area, broadcast works well, but requires more effort. You do use almost every bit of space for growing, but you have to weed labouriously on your knees and you have to do it regularly when the seedlings start growing.
You also have to know what a tiny carrot seedling looks like



As TS says, you then pick out the bigger ones and leave the others to grow bigger, because of this you need a fast growing variety, not a main crop, otherwise you will just get the end result that you got, a few big ones and lots of small ones.

If you do this way really well, you should thin out as well and end up with a perfectly filled bed with perfectly growing carrots growing at perfect distances from each other. And that is alot of perfect carrots per sq metre.

Lines are easier for weeding, but need thinning and stations don't require thinning so much, but each station does obviously.

However, I did say that the broadcast method allows you to use the ground more efficiently, which is not quite true, because line growing usually means faster maturing carrots, so you can then sow a 2nd crop in the same place.

[Lovely Helen]

I have had a rubbish year with carrots as well which I now know was due to a severe lack of water. The minute the heavens opened in August they all started to pick up. Last year I had brilliant results with seed tapes which germinate well and tend to produce baby carrots in the thinnings and then well spaced carrots to grow on. I managed 4 different plantings of 2 rows in each carrot fly cage. Now that I know (from the lovely people on this site) that a drenching once a week should be done in dry spells I'm hoping to have better results next year.