First time growing, growing: Carrots, Onions & Potatoes.

[dantribe]

Hello!

So, a few weeks ago I decided I was going to start my long venture into self-sustainable living. To kick start this off I've decided to grow Carrots, Onions & Potatoes.

My questions are mainly related towards Carrots but if you feel you have any hints and tips based on the information I'm about to give you towards onions and potatoes, everything will be noted.

So, Basically, I don't have a garden. I will be soon moving which hopefully will have some form of patch of land I can grow properly from, but for now I'm growing from pots. After a few hours of searching the internet for what is best to grow in, I went to B&Q and bought some sharp sand, multi-purpose compost, vitax calcified seaweed, Liquid seaweed and Vitax potato fertilizer. If I'm growing carrots, I've heard carrots grow best in a sandy/soil mixture, whilst not over doing it on the nutrients. i plan on mixing 1:3 sand:soil ratio, mixing with calcified seaweed a few weeks before planting my seeds. my couple of questions are...

1)What ratio should my compost to sand be? Is this right?
2)How much calcified seaweed should i use?
3)What else can I buy to help growing?
4)Am I just completely wrong with what I'm doing?

Basically what I'm asking is for a first timers guide to growing carrots in Pots. I know it's not just as simple as saying this is what you need to do, so maybe a couple of starting points for me?

If I'm wasting time with 'noob', information grabbing, I apologies, i feel like I've exhausted my resources and aren't getting the information I'm looking for. I'f you have a link to previous post that answers these, that would be great also.

Thanks for reading.

[veggiechicken]

Hi Dantribe and welcome to the forum.
We love questions but, for every question you'll receive several different answers! Somebody will be along soon who can help you with the specifics of growing carrots. Unfortunately, its not me as I'm hopeless at growing carrots

[kazmum]

Hi dantribe,
I just grow my carrots in a trough, using a good multi purpose compost. I don't thin them out, just leave to grow, then when they get to a reasonable size pull some to use as baby carrots, as if you're thinning them, and leave rest to grow on.

[Lisasbolt]

All i can say is Helcome for now, i am sure lots of other grapes will help you and i hope to help in the future

[Potstubsdustbins]

Dan welcome to the mad house. It may take a couple of days but you will get answers..........lots of them. Remember if you ask two gardeners the same question you will get at least 3 answers.

First you can help us by putting you rough location in your profile it will make the advice given more specific to you.

I friend of mine grows carrots in containers, he has no soil so use approximately 3 parts MPC (multipurpose compost) to 1 part sand. Remember what ever you put in the soil you will need to feed at some stage. He chucks in a couple of tablespoons of gromore a basic 7-7-7- fertilizer but calcified seaweed would IMO do just as well. For containers he use MBFB (Morrison's black flower buckets) cheap as chips at 98p for 8 and you just need to put drainage holes in the bottom.

One point we found out when he first started was to scatter the seed very thinly either that or thin the carrots out as they grow. At his first attempt he let them all grow to maturity and it was a heck of a job to lever them out of the pot.

Onions, I grow in containers, you need something about 8 inches deep again I use MPC with a good dose of pelleted onion fertiliser mixed in, not an accurate measurement but I throw in a good handful to 30ltrs of compost. Again you will have to give additional feed as they grow.

Potatoes are relatively easy if you follow a few simple rules. It depends on what you want to grow earlies can be grown 1 seed to a MBFB or three or four seeds in a larger container. Again you will have to supplementary feed and keep well watered as the tubers start to develop.

If you are thinking of moving this year I would keep my containers down to a manageable size to allow me to take them and my produce with me.

[dantribe]

Thank you all for the warm welcome!

I appreciate the breakdown potstubsdustbins sounds like I was on target with alot of what I have read, and I am more than happy with 100+ replies aslong as it's all sound advice I will note it all down.

Thanks again guys.

[Lumpy]

Hello Dan and Welcome

I grow my carrots in a wooden box made out of old pallets but as it is starting to fall apart I will be trying Potty's flower bucket idea.

In the past I have added sand as a third - 2 MPC and 1 Sand. It works just as well for parsnips.

Potatoes go into buckets - 1 per bucket.

Growmore, chicken pellets or blood fish and bone (BFB) can all be used as a feed.

Try not to get your self stressed over your new project.

[Nannysally99]

Hello and welcome
Although we have a garden, we grow mainly in pots and containers.
Potatoes, carrots, onions and tomatoes grow extremely well
Just remember that they will need lots of watering as well as feeding
Good luck

[Jungle Jane]

When I first grew carrots the seeds got wet before I sowed them & they were too close together,resulting in tiny silly carrots but great top growth. Easier if you keep the seeds dry,also water the compost before you lay the seeds,then they won't all travel next to each other from the pressure of the water you know.

[Penellype]

I grow all my carrots in pots - here are some from last summer:



At the back are 4 pots of spring planted carrots (various varieties) in 18 inch square pots. At the front 2 later sown 30 litre buckets which were sown a bit thickly. Pots should be around a foot deep. Most of the varieties are nantes types. These were the results:



Variety Marion, which produced lovely even sized carrots.



A mixture of varieties on a 6 inch plate. The big ones were Nantes Frubund Fastcrop, the smaller ones were other varieties which had mostly been sown too close together.

Important points to note:

Sow thinly - see above.
Keep the seed bed/seedlings moist - if they dry out they will die. I always put my pots in a drip tray and try to keep at least a little water in it. People say the carrots will drown, but I find they are much better this way than allowed to get too dry.
Cover the plants with insect mesh, otherwise you are likely to lose the lot to carrot fly. The smaller cover in my photo was assembled from parts of one of those cheap plastic covered greenhouses and covered with a sheet of insect mesh.

I don't bother with sand. I grow my carrots in sieved compost which has grown things like potatoes or tomatoes the previous year. They don't need a lot of food.

Carrots don't need full sun. Mine are in a shady area up against an east facing wall with another wall not far away to the south.

[BUFFS]

I use 1pt topsoil, 1pt mpc, 1pt sand, in some builders buckets, I put a table spoonful of chicken pellets onto soil a month before sowing, sow thinly, I don't feed carrots again and I use this compost the following year for other veg and feed it well before use, that autumn it goes on the compost heap until the following spring when I start using it again...

[jackarmy]

Hi Dan and welcome to the vine.
As youve already seen, the folk here are more than happy to help and certainly know their stuff, but i also find you tube a great help, combine them both and im sure you will find the right path .

I am in the same boat as you , waiting for a plot ( down to third on the list ) and growing in pots and a greenhouse at home untill then.

This guy has some tidy videos. When he sows carrots he makes a template out of a pizza base

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3kn4e8dHjNk