Tips for growing carrots

[Alice Johnson]

Hello everyone. What is your advice for achieving a great crop of carrots?

[Snoop Puss]

Use unopened packets of seed in date, water regularly till germinated, keep watering and don't give up the faith if you have used fresh seeds, then once germinated water deeply but less frequently while they're growing. Soil has to be as stone free and deep as you can make it. I've read you shouldn't feed them, but I've had better results with a bit of fertiliser worked into the soil (not manure).

[burnie]

I find myself praying a lot to the gods of veggie germination, carrots are a real hit and miss for me I'm afraid and yet seemingly my coastal sandy soil is allegedly perfect for said roots. I usually ending up sowing twice before I get anything and the variety seems to have no effect whatsoever.

[Penellype]

Sieve compost into large pots and water then sow seeds individually an inch or more apart in all directions. Cover seeds with a thin layer of sieved compost and water gently with a very fine rose or spray. Cover the pot with a plastic cloche or fine net. After germination replace plastic cloche (if used) with net. Keep seedlings well watered. It helps to keep slugs away if there is a ring of copper tape around the pot.

It is very tempting to sow carrots more thickly. This leads to very small carrots unless they are thinned, but thinning risks attracting carrot fly.

[Bren In Pots]

I sow mine in buckets with a mix of sieved compost, soil and leaf mould then keep covered with a tent netting.

[Guest]

Get a small child to sow them along with anything else you struggle with. My oldest has some lovely overwintered carrots coming along with some Christmas sown cornflowers

[Jimny14]

So for what it's worth here's how I did some last year, it must have been OK as I have dispensation for more of the same to increase harvest this year. A commercial potato growing bag (although I'm pressing in to service some old compost bags with drain holes in the bottom this year,) filled with a mixture of our garden soil sieved on a dry day (very clayey and stony) and sharp builders sand (I know some people worry about salt in it but I didn't have problems last year but as I am using different supplier this time I got them a few months ago and opened them up with a drain hole in the bottom to allow winter rain to rinse it for me) fill bag with mix to make v sandy soil, more soil at bottom, more sandy towards top. During filling I placed a thin sprinkling of grow more fertiliser in only a few inches from the bottom then filled on top (my thinking was to get the roots searching for the nutrient), just before planting I watered with hot water then planted seed v thinly in a couple of circles and a few in middle, tried to space seeds well to allow growing room.

[Guest]

It's not true unless there is a pic. Small child grown carrots.

Overwintered in gh (just past the gnome)



Her pot of French carrots from the snow competition (it was only part of the packet ty again Nicos )

[Bluenowhere]

Net, net and net again with fine mesh net. I had mine netted until the leaves pressed on the net and then I stupidly removed it thinking that in a July they would be safe from carrot fly and they would grow better without squashed leaves. They weren’t! Completely riddled with black maggoty tunnels - grrrrrrr.

The germinating bit and straight growing bit is part luck and part preparation as others have already said.

[nickdub]

Hello everyone. What is your advice for achieving a great crop of carrots?

I'd say buying a farm in Norfolk is probably the best first step - then depending on your level of experience hiring a knowledgeable manager might be advisable.

Alternatively a reasonably informative article here :- https://www.gardenfocused.co.uk/vege...arrot/grow.php for garden scale operations :-)