How to properly plant carrots with seeds in the open field
Carrots are a fairly popular vegetable that is often used in cooking. It can be added to various vegetable salads or hot dishes, or simply consumed raw. Many vegetable growers prefer not to buy carrots, but to grow them on their site. Before that, it is recommended that you familiarize yourself with how to plant carrots with seeds in the open field without picking and determine the last date for planting carrots.
Preparing for planting
Before you start planting carrots in open ground, you need to do the preparatory work. Preparation for planting is carried out in several stages.
When to sow carrots outdoors
First you need to decide when to plant carrots according to the lunar calendar in 2018.
To determine the exact timing of planting carrots, you need to know how much its seeds germinate. On average, they germinate within a month. However, carrots will need another 1-2 weeks for the bushes to grow to 10-15 cm. Therefore, it is recommended to plant them in mid-April, so that the first harvest can be obtained by summer. The deadline for planting is mid-May. It is impossible to postpone the last period of sowing carrots further, since due to the summer heat, the bushes will grow worse.
Seed preparation
When the optimal time for sowing carrots has been precisely determined, you can proceed to the preliminary preparation of the planting material. There are several ways to speed up seed germination after planting. To do this, place all the seeds in a small cloth bag and bury it in moist soil to a depth of 10 cm for several days. They must be in the ground for 24 hours, after which the seeds are removed and dried in the sun. This procedure speeds up the germination of carrots in the open field by 5-7 days.
Also, before planting, bubbling is carried out. It is carried out to reduce the time of carrot germination. For this procedure, heated water is poured into a small container. After that, oxygen is supplied to the liquid and seeds are poured out, which will need to be grown. All seeds are in water for at least 20 hours. Then they are removed from the container, wrapped in a cloth bag and placed in the refrigerator for five days.
Some vegetable growers, instead of bubbling, are engaged in pelleting seeds. During the pelleting of carrots in the spring, their seeds are covered with a special nutritious shell, thanks to which the germination process is accelerated. For the procedure, potting soil and liquid mullein are added to the glass.After that, seeds mixed with humus and peat are added to the container. Then the glass is covered with a lid and shaken well several times. It is recommended to carry out the procedure a few days before planting in the ground.
Site selection
Choosing a suitable site is necessary regardless of whether the carrots are planted with seedlings or seeds. It should be sown in the most suitable area. When choosing, you should pay attention to the soil. Sandy loam and medium loamy soils are suitable for carrots, which contain no more than 4% humus. You can also plant this vegetable in areas with acidic and heavy soils. They should contain about 2% humus.
It is recommended to grow carrots in places where potatoes, cabbage, annual herbs or beet were grown before. Some vegetable growers claim that it grows well after perennial grasses, as they heal the soil and cleanse it of pathogens of various diseases.
It is also worth paying attention to the quality of the area lighting. If you transplant a carrot in a poorly lit place, then it will gradually begin to stretch and this will negatively affect the amount of the crop. Therefore, it is better to choose a place in the garden that would be illuminated by the sun throughout the day.
Soil preparation
Planting carrots in open ground with seeds should be carried out in pre-prepared soil. It is recommended to do this in September, no later than the 15th. Before planting, the soil is dug up and fertilized with humus. Mineral dressings are also added, consisting of phosphorus and nitrogen fertilizers. It is necessary to use nitrogen fertilizing very carefully, as their excess degrades the quality of the carrot and reduces its shelf life.
To preserve all the positive qualities of the vegetable, 1-2 kg of phosphorus or potassium dressings can be added to the soil.
Fertilizers can be omitted if humus was regularly added to the ground before that.
How to sow carrots so as not to thin out
Some are interested in planting a vegetable without thinning the bushes when growing. After all, not everyone wants to waste time to thin out the bushes when diving. Therefore, it is worth familiarizing yourself with how you can plant carrots so as not to thin them out.
How to plant carrots on tape
It is this method of planting carrots that is often used, which later allows not to thin out the bushes. The main advantage of this method is the storage time of the tapes with seeds. Kleister is a reliable substance that does not lose its properties. Therefore, you can prepare tapes for planting in the fall or winter. To store them, it is enough to roll up all the tapes into a tube and place them in a box. It is not recommended to store the tapes in damp conditions so that the paste does not deteriorate.
You can make a tape for planting with your own hands. To do this, you will need the following devices for planting carrots:
- paste;
- toilet paper;
- water.
First, the toilet paper is cut into small strips. Their length should be equal to the size of the beds, and the thickness should not exceed 2 cm. Paste is applied to the paper. Its drops are applied to the surface at a distance of 3-5 cm from each other. All seeds are placed on a paste and dried on it for 20-30 minutes.
The prepared strips with seeds can be planted on the beds and covered with a small layer of soil. However, before that you need to prepare the site. To do this, several rows are created on it, in which carrots will be planted on ribbons. In this case, it is necessary to decide what distance between the rows should be. Plants should not be very close to each other, so the rows are made at a distance of 40-50 cm.
How to sow carrots using egg trays
Sometimes egg trays are used when planting carrots.They use this method so as not to engage in later by thinning the sown carrots... With the help of trays, seeds are planted at the same distance.
The scheme for planting carrots with trays is quite simple. First you need to decide at what distance to make the beds. So that in the future the bushes do not interfere with each other, the beds are made at a distance of 45-50 cm. After that, two egg trays are nested into each other so that their structure becomes more durable. Then the trays are applied to the ground with the convex side, and seeds can be sown into the holes for the eggs. We sow no more than 2-3 seeds in each hole.
How to properly plant carrots in open ground in a bag
Some are interested in whether it is possible to plant carrots in winter. This method allows you to plant seeds in the soil at the latest planting date of carrots. To do this, a shallow hole is made in the garden, into which a fabric bag with seeds will be placed. After 2-3 weeks, they are dug out, since they have already sufficiently germinated by this time. The dug up seeds are mixed with river sand and sown into the soil.
Care
To get a good harvest, it is necessary to properly care for the carrot during cultivation.
Watering
It is imperative to water the vegetable, since a lack of moisture can lead to lethargy of the fruit. To moisten the soil, it is recommended to use a special irrigation device that would immediately deliver water under the ground. For this, pipes with special holes in the walls for water are dug in between the rows. One square meter of the site must consume at least ten liters of water.
Top dressing
During the cultivation of carrots, fertilizers must be regularly applied to the soil. The procedure must be carried out twice. The first feeding is carried out 20 days after planting the seedlings in the ground. Superphosphate, urea and potassium nitrate are added to the soil. The second feeding is carried out 60 days after the first. In this case, it is recommended to add fertilizers only after preliminary soil moisture.
Conclusion
Anyone can grow carrots. To do this, you need to decide when you can plant carrots in open ground and how to plant it correctly. To do this, you can consult with friends or watch a video that tells you when you can transplant carrots.
And I don't see any problem in thinning carrots. This is done quickly, and it is possible to leave the largest (strongest) shoots. In order for the harvest to be higher and the root crops are larger, I use the product BioGrow.