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In Russia there is no garden where carrots are not planted. In some, root crops succeed gloriously, juicy, smooth, sweet. Others look painful, crooked squiggles, bitter, cracked. What is the secret of this orange beauty? Maybe in the selection of seeds? Hardly.
How to grow carrots in the open field, so that she thanks a high yield? It turns out she's still that cranky girl. And we need a special approach to it. Just from the category of "dancing with a tambourine" and "what else do you need?"
Soil for carrots
Carrot is an obstinate girl. Slightly not according to her, she immediately turns her nose. In other words, it begins to grow at random. It produces a lot of tails, but there is no sense. That is, the soil should be as loose as possible. That's right so that the foot is drowned. Therefore, the garden is prepared in advance, in the fall.
Digging deep, one and a half bayonet. So that was where to grow a carrot. Otherwise, it begins to dodge and spin.
She also loves to eat, hearty and tight. But during growth it is inconvenient to feed her. Top pouring is useless when it still reaches the root? Loosening the earth is also impossible, there is a risk of damage to small roots. What to do? Fertilize in advance.
In autumn they add well-ripened humus, but more. Manure is not introduced. Only if he finally rewrote, and even then abstain. Sand is poured, large, clean. Sawdust, shavings are not suitable. They strongly acidify the soil, and carrots do not like this passion. It is better to lime fluff, dolomite flour, ash pour. Again, this is all - strictly before the winter digging.
Mineral fertilizers are added. Especially the orange beauty respects potassium, phosphorus. But nitrogen does not like. Absolutely. Root crops are huge, but not sweet. Cattle feed only and suitable.
And vice versa. If you plan to sow carrots in the winter, then the garden bed is prepared in advance, in the spring or in the middle of summer.
Is it possible to plant carrots in the winter
So what? If the bed is well cultivated, then why not? Seeds begin to germinate already at soil temperature + 5 ° С. Suddenly arrive at the site much later? In addition, early carrots will not hurt anyone, especially on the table. Another plus: by the time the weeds begin to emerge, the beauty will grow a beautiful magnificent braid. Therefore, she does not threaten to be clogged.
Of course, such root crops are not suitable for long storage, it will take too long to lie. But for early use - just right.
The principle of winter sowing is very simple. To do this, prepare a bed in the summer. Around October, furrows are cut according to the usual pattern. And they prepare dry soil in buckets. They are put in the underground, cellar, barn. In a word, where the earth does not freeze into a lump and remains loose.
With the onset of steady frost, about -10 ° C, they come to the garden. Almost the entire layer of snow is removed from it, leaving about 1-1.5 cm. Carrot seeds are laid directly in the prepared grooves on the snow. Sprinkle with prepared soil in buckets. And the shot snow is thrown back from above.
Everything. Now in the spring, as soon as the bed warms up to about + 6 ° C, the carrot will start growing. In the middle lane it is approximately mid-April. And the usual way involves only the third decade to begin sowing.
Thus, winter planting allows you to get a crop at least a month earlier.
Tip. Seeds must be absolutely dry! Wet just kill frost. Dry calmly endure the harshest winter, there would be more snow.
How to plant a carrot in spring
But not everyone risks planting carrots as described above.Most used to sow it the old fashioned way, in the spring. Well, let's figure out how to do it right.
Seed preparation. Carrot has one feature. Its seeds contain a very high content of essential oils. A kind of protective shell. It protects the seeds from the outside from the effects of negative factors. But here's the catch. The same essential oil makes seed germination very difficult. Have you noticed how long the carrots take?
To destroy this etheric shell, gardeners use a variety of methods. Here are the most common ones:
- Seeds are placed in a linen bag, pour it with hot clean water. At approximately + 50 ° C for three hours. At the same time, the water is changed to fresh during this time 4 times.
- Before planting, the seeds are mixed with wet sand and, as it were, rubbed between the fingers. Strong enough.
- The seeds are soaked for 12 hours, then the water is completely drained. Place them in the refrigerator for 2 days. This way the essential oil evaporates faster.
- A linen bag with dry seeds is dripped in any flower pot. Keep it like this for about 10 days. During this time, the soil will stretch most of the ether shell.
All these methods accelerate the germination of carrot seeds by about half. That is, shoots will have to wait only a week instead of the usual two.
Sow carrots
By the way, now on sale full of pelleted seeds. The thing is comfortable. Large balls are easy to sow. The shell contains the entire complex of minerals, so necessary for young shoots. Some are even saturated with a growth stimulant. The only negative of such seeds is the presence of a large amount of moisture during germination. That is, the earth must be moist. You will have to shed it well. And in hot weather, you need to water the furrows again until the first loops appear.
But it is possible to do with ordinary carrot seeds. In order to make it convenient to plant, gardeners have come up with many different ways. We will check them each.
Paste. Cook ordinary paste, medium density. An approximate amount of the necessary seeds is poured into it and thoroughly stirred. Then they simply spill a furrow from a vessel with a thin nose. A kettle is well suited for this purpose.
The disadvantage of this method is that you still have to get the hang of pouring this mixture evenly along the entire length of the bed.
Sand. Seeds are mixed with clean, moist sand. The proportion is 1 to 1. And already this mixture is sown in the furrows, as they used to. So the seeds fall less often.
Minus of the method: older people no longer have young finger sensitivity. Therefore, sand is easily confused with seeds. The uniformity of landings will still be violated.
The bubble. Any vial with a screw cap. A hole is made in it with an awl, a little larger than a carrot seed. Pour raw materials inside. A sharp hand movement is made above the furrow - a seed flies through a hole.
Disadvantage: the first time a seed may simply not fall into the hole. From the second time, three pieces will fly at once. So go, shake the bubble like crazy.
Paper. In their free time they take the cheapest toilet paper. Seeds are glued onto it with a paste and toothpick. Then, after drying, you just need to cut everything into strips. When planting, they are laid in furrows and sprinkled with earth.
Less: a lesson for the very patient, for tedious, long and breaking eyes.
Use any suitable for you. Perhaps you turn disadvantages into advantages. Just use the classic principle: they shed a groove very strongly before laying the seeds. And sprinkle with loose, always dry soil.
This will allow a thick earthen crust to not form on the surface, and seedlings will freely break out.
Carrots
She, of course, is a girl. But she needs a little different care than a young girl.
Loosening. After each watering or rain, it is necessary to loosen the topsoil to a depth of not more than 2-2.5 cm.Break the crust so that it does not condense the earth around the root crop. You should not go deeper. But between the furrows you can frolic with a chopper or a plane cutter from the heart. Thus, the soil pressure on the root crop will decrease and small feeding roots will remain intact.
Watering. He likes to drink carrots. I often, rarely, but very regularly. Make yourself a rule: once a week on the same day, properly spill the soil in the plantings. It is necessary to moisten to a depth of at least 20-22 cm.
If you water often and little by little, the root crop will be short and shaggy. And the first mighty summer downpour will cause severe cracking of the fruit.
If you don’t water it at all (don't let it grow yourself), then there is a great risk of getting woody and bitter dried pies instead of a crop. Not at all like carrots.
Top dressing. Throughout the growing season, fertilizers do not apply! All fertilizing must be added to the soil in advance. If carrots will receive nutrition from outside during growth, then it will grow large. But there will be no taste. This is especially true for fertilizers with a high nitrogen content.
Pests. In addition to people, carrots like to enjoy carrots. She especially respects the young landing immediately after being pulled. Remember how far the tops scent spreads at the end of the procedure.
To avoid such a nuisance, some sources recommend alternating grooves with onion plantings. The effect will undoubtedly be. But very weak.
Better to act like this:
- a day before the alleged disruption, prepare an infusion of onion husks
- on day X pour liquid into a spray bottle
- pull the groove and quickly spray the plantings with infusion
It’s not worth pouring specifically. Onion infusion is very smelly, it needs quite a bit. Just to interrupt the carrot flavor. By the way, you can periodically spray carrots throughout the growing season. This is 100% safe planting from carrot flies. The remaining pests are quite indifferent to the orange beauty.
Picking a crop
When to start digging carrots? In principle, all information is always very detailed on the seed packaging. Be guided by it and you will definitely not be mistaken.
What to do if the seeds have been donated or you have grown them yourself? Of course, you can pull out one root crop and take a long look at it. Is it time or let him sit in the ground? How to guess?
It turns out that everything is simple. Carrots begin to be massively harvested when they turn yellow and 4-6 lower leaves begin to dry. If they are still green and peppy, then let them grow for now.
By the way, try not to dig out a part of the bed. Cut the foliage with scissors or secateurs under the root. But do not touch the pulp. After about 2 days, when the top of the root crop dries, sprinkle it with soil on your head. And forget it until spring.
As soon as the snow falls, feel free to take the forks and dig up your experiment. Carrot in the cellar by this moment already shows distinct signs of wilting. And the one that you left in the garden will be fresh, juicy and tasty.
Tip. Just do not forget to carefully compact the soil around the abandoned root crops. Straight feet and tight. Mice are also very fond of such carrots. And the crushed earth will prevent them from tasting the sweet pulp.
Some recommendations
- If planting too often, be sure to thin out the carrots immediately after watering. So root crops will be pulled out of the soil without damage to the adjacent girlfriends.
- Store carrots in a well-ventilated area. Thus, you will avoid the manifestation of many putrefactive and fungal diseases. You are not sure about the complete sterility of your soil?
- When digging up root crops, do not pull them by the tops. A long piece can break off and remain in the soil. Use a pitchfork. They easily enter the most dense soil and the risk of damaging the fruits is minimal.
- Plant varieties of different ripening dates. Use ripe for cooking daily dishes. This carrot is bad in the cellar. Mid-season ripen just in time for harvesting for the winter. Late-ripening varieties are best stored. They ripen exactly at the time of laying in cellars and cellars.
- Carrots are not planted with seedlings. The experiments conducted by some gardeners showed that such root crops always grow in curves and do not gain their characteristic mass. At the same time, valuable time is spent on transplantation. And in the spring it is already lacking.
How to grow carrots in the open ground? In fact, not so simple. Size is not the main advantage of an orange beauty. It is much more important to get juicy and sweet root crops with a minimum of costs. Take good care of the carrot, and it will not rust after it.
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