Carrots are a biennial plant from the celery family. In the first growing season, carrots form a leaf rosette and a root crop. Exists . Their shape can be either conical or cylindrical or round.

If a carrot root crop is planted in the second year, the plant will form a rosette of leaves and then discard the flower stems ending in an umbrella-shaped inflorescence.

Growing carrots in open ground is a simple task that even novice vegetable growers can do. Subject to the techniques of agricultural technology and good care this root vegetable will surely please with a good harvest.

Site selection and soil preparation

Carrots are very demanding on soils, the most good harvest can be obtained on light soils with a neutral reaction. Heavy soils are fine too, just cultivate them well to a depth of about 35 cm or choose a ridge growing method.

If the groundwater is close to the site, then the beds for carrots are best done raised to a height of about 30 cm. The place for planting is best prepared in the fall: dig up the soil and add manure or humus.

For growing carrots, light areas are best suited; in the case of shading, its yield will noticeably decrease.

Note: for heavy clay soils, it is best to use short-root varieties such as Karotel or Chantane.

Sowing

Carrots are a cold-resistant plant, their seedlings tolerate frost well. Therefore, you can start sowing it immediately after the snow melts, which will allow you to get the first harvest in June. For such an early spring sowing, early maturing varieties are perfect. To further reduce the ripening time, you can use sowing before winter or try to master the cultivation of early carrots in a greenhouse.

When growing carrots intended for long-term storage, it is necessary to plant varieties of medium and late ripening, they are sown from the end of April to the beginning of June.

Note: the carrot crop obtained as a result of podwinter and early spring sowing is not suitable for storage.

When growing carrots in the country, in most cases, row sowing is used, and on an industrial scale when using drip irrigation, practiced tape-line or on the combs.

Sowing seeds is carried out directly into the soil in grooves, the distance between which should be about 20 cm. After the end of sowing, they are covered with earth and thoroughly shed with water. (Read how to prepare carrot seeds for planting.)

Unlike others garden crops carrots cannot be grown through seedlings; if their taproot is damaged, root crops grow branched and clumsy.

Take a note: to maintain optimal humidity and accelerate germination, film or agrofibre can be stretched over the garden bed.

Care

After the emergence of seedlings, it is very important to thin them out in time. It is usually started after the appearance of two true leaves, the distance between the left plants should be about 2 cm.

Novice gardeners often neglect thinning, and as a result they harvest from small and intertwined root crops.

Watering

When watering carrot beds, it is very important to follow these rules:

1. Watering must be plentiful, in dry weather, until the first true leaves form, approximately 2 times a week.
2. During the period when root crops begin to grow, watering must be reduced to 1 time per week, the ground must be well soaked to a depth of 20 cm.
3. From about mid-August, when the carrots begin to pour, watering is stopped, except when a drought begins.

In arid and hot regions, vegetable growers practice the method of growing carrots under straw. With this method, the aisles with grown carrots are laid with straw or any other mulching material, which avoids overheating of root crops and reduces the number of irrigations to a minimum.

Note: after watering, the formation of a crust on the surface of the soil should not be allowed, while root crops will experience oxygen starvation and develop worse. To prevent this, after watering, it is imperative to loosen the soil surface, while at the same time removing the growing weeds.

Top dressing

Carrots are not very demanding on soil fertility, but to obtain high harvest it is recommended to carry out top dressing. The first feeding is recommended to be carried out one month after germination. To do this, you can use the following mixture, made up of.

Carrots are a well-known vegetable that has taken pride of place on our table for a long time. This is a unique plant, the root crop of which is saturated with a huge amount of useful trace elements and vitamins, especially vitamin A. But in order to get a rich and tasty harvest, all conditions for growing carrots must be observed. Today we will talk about how carrots are taken care of in the open field: planting, watering, etc. (photographs are attached).

The main varieties and varieties: a detailed description

Carrots are a herbaceous plant. It can be both annual and perennial. In the first year of "life", only a leaf rosette and a fruit are formed, and already in the second - seeds. The fruit of the carrot is presented in the form of a cone or cylinder, rather fleshy (the fruit can reach a weight of 1 kg or even more). The inflorescence of carrots is a multi-rayed umbrella with small flowers of white, red and yellow on the sides, as well as a central red flower.

The root vegetable of the plant contains a significant amount of useful substances: flavonoids, sugars, B vitamins, ascorbic acid, etc.

Depending on the duration of the growing season, the vegetable can be divided into three subgroups: early ripening (ripening period is 2-3 months), mid-ripening (ripening period is about 3-3.5 months, the fruits are very juicy sweet) and late-ripening carrots (ripening period is about 4 months ).

Exists a large number of various varieties of carrots, but some of them differ from others in a particularly high yield, excellent external and taste qualities of the root crop, as well as immunity to various diseases... Consider just such varieties (you can familiarize yourself with them in more detail from the photos found on the Internet):

Amsterdam carrot variety

• Amsterdam. Early ripe, very productive variety... The root crop reaches a weight of 100-200 g. The plant is extremely immune to various diseases and cracking.
• Finhor. The variety is early maturing (ripens within a month and a half), practically immune to diseases. The plant does not need hilling. The root crop is rather large, in the form of a cone.
• Incomparable. The variety is perfect for sowing in winter. He is also not afraid of pests. The fruits are very tasty, bright orange in color.
• Forto. The variety is very productive, resistant not only to diseases, but also to low temperatures (including frost). The fruits grow quite large and long (up to 20 cm).
• The Queen of Autumn. A very popular variety. Differs in high productivity, insensitivity to pests. Cylindrical fruits with bright taste - juicy, sweet.
• Golden autumn. Popular variety with excellent yields and good disease resistance. The fruits are large and juicy.

Variety Queen of Autumn

Planting plants in open ground

Carrots are a plant that is very resistant to cold weather, including freezing temperatures. But at the same time, it loves light - it takes at least 12 hours sunlight per day. The right time for planting is a very important point, on which the yield of carrots will directly depend. The term largely depends on the selected variety. So, early ripe carrots can be sown in winter, but you should take into account the peculiarity climatic conditions your region.

The ideal time for sowing seeds outdoors is early spring... Early maturing varieties can be sown when the temperature is stable above zero, in the region of 4-6 degrees. It is better to sow middle and late varieties when the air temperature warms up to 15-18 degrees, that is, by the end of spring - in early May.

Carrots - the plant is happy "tight" on initial stage cultivation - it gives the first shoots for a very long time. This process can last up to one and a half months. To speed up the growth process, you should prepare the seeds in advance. There are several ways to prepare seeds:

• Heat treatment. The seeds are wrapped in cloth and lowered for half an hour in hot water(about 50 degrees). Then they must be immediately removed and immediately immersed in chilled water for a couple of minutes.
• Soak. Carrot seeds are soaked in warm water for a day. An important point: the water needs to be changed every 3 hours. Then the seeds need to be rinsed with water, dried and placed in the refrigerator for a couple of days.

Advice. Experienced gardeners add to the water for soaking seeds wood ash(1 tablespoon per liter of water).

• Burying. Enough effective method, which consists in preliminary burying the seeds in the ground in small bags to a depth of 15 cm. On the day of planting, the seeds must be dug up, thoroughly dried and planted again in the ground.
• Pelleting. Creation of a nutritious shell for seeds. In equal proportions, mullein, humus, peat are used to create a nutrient mixture. The seeds must be immersed in it for literally a few minutes, then taken out and dried.

It is necessary to choose a place for planting carrots carefully: it should be sunny, even. The soil must be prepared in advance: since the fall, the earth is dug into one and a half bayonets of a shovel.

Advice. Try to dig the soil deeper, because if the root crop begins to grow actively and rests against a dense, not dug soil layer, it will grow crooked.

Fertilizers are also applied to the soil: superphosphate (20 g), potassium (15-20 g), nitrogen (15-20 g) and a little humus. All figures are based on one square meter. On the eve of sowing, the soil needs to be slightly loosened and leveled. Furrows are prepared for sowing with a width of about 5 cm. The distance between rows of 25-30 cm must be observed. The seeds are planted very tightly to each other - at a distance of only a couple of centimeters, 2 cm deep. It is advisable to fill the sowing with an earth-peat mixture from above.

Carrot care

Carrots are a rather demanding plant to care for, so you will have to try your best to get a good harvest.

Since the reproduction of carrots is a rather delicate process, it is important to properly and regularly care for the crops. The ground must be weeded periodically. You can start doing this even before the first shoots appear.

Weed your carrot beds regularly

To prevent the formation of a crust on the surface of the soil, be sure to carry out regular fluffing of the earth. It is advisable to do this after watering the plant. Also, carrots should not have "neighbors" in the form of weeds. The area planted with this vegetable must always be clean.

In addition, the plant must be thinned well. This applies, of course, only to those cases where the seeds were sown too densely. For the first time, a plant is thinned out when several leaves appear on the shoots. As a result, the distance between individual shoots should be at least 3 cm.

In order for the root vegetables to grow large and juicy, the carrots must receive a sufficient amount of moisture. Accordingly, watering should be regular and generous. An insufficient amount of moisture will entail the appearance of lateral processes, which will spoil not only appearance fruits, but also their taste.

The ideal watering regime for carrots is once every 7 days. In this case, the amount of water should be:

• about 2-3 liters per square meter- before the emergence of the first shoots;
• about 10 l - after re-thinning of the plant;
• 15-20 liters - during the active growth of the root crop.

Application of dressings and fertilizers

Carrots are not very demanding on top dressing - it is enough to "saturate" the soil only 2 times during the entire growing period. The first time - 30 days after the first shoots appear, the second - after another 30 days. A nutritional mixture is prepared in the following composition: 400 g of wood ash, 20 g of nitrophoska, 20 g of potassium nitrate (you can add urea and superphosphate). All figures shown are based on one bucket of water.

Harvesting carrots

Disease and pest control

Consider the diseases and pests that carrots are "afraid" of the most:

• White rot. It occurs when there is an excess of fertilizers containing nitrogen. The method of struggle is the introduction of preparations containing copper into the soil.
• Bacteriosis This disease can be easily prevented if only healthy seeds are used.
• Gray rot. This is a real fungus, which can only be overcome by disinfecting the plant.
• Felt disease. The vegetable is already affected during storage. The method of struggle is the elimination of infected root crops.
• Fomoz. Brown spots appearing on carrots indicate that the predecessors of the plant were poorly selected. The method of struggle is the elimination of damaged flaccid fruits.
• Hawthorn aphid. It is quite easy to prevent the appearance of this pest: you just need to control that hawthorn does not grow near the planting site of carrot seeds.

Combining carrots with other plants

The following plants are considered the best predecessors for carrots: representatives of the nightshade family (potatoes, tomatoes), cucumber, legumes, onions, cabbage, etc. There is an excellent combination of carrots with plants such as garlic, beets, again, cucumber, beans, etc. etc.

Advice. You should not plant carrots for more than two years in a row in the same area. You should also avoid precursors such as parsley, dill, celery, etc.

Here we are with you and got acquainted with the process of growing carrots in the open field. As you can see, this process is quite simple if you carry out a number of measures in time, described in detail in our article. We wish you good luck and a rich harvest!

Stages of growing carrots: video

How to grow carrots: photo

Carrots do not require special care, but the rules of cultivation must be followed. It is a drought-resistant crop, tolerates frosts and prolonged cold snaps well. How to grow carrots? The secrets, like other vegetables, lie in the correct agricultural technology.

It requires more maintenance than other crops. Let's take a closer look at how to grow carrots in the country or garden plot do it yourself.

Soil preparation

It is required to choose a bright place before growing carrots. The secrets lie in the fact that with a lack of sunlight due to a falling shadow or an uneven surface of the bed, the roots lose their sugar content and mass.

Before you can grow a good crop of carrots, you need to choose a light and level soil. It should be sandy loam, light loamy, with good drainage. In dense loam, the fruits grow small; during storage, they are quickly affected by rot. Carrots must not be planted on acidic soils... It requires a neutral or slightly acidic environment.

Before growing good carrots, necessary

The garden bed is prepared in the fall so that it settles. It is made loose. To do this, add sawdust, humus, peat or sand. For liming, chalk, lime, dolomite, ash are used. You should not use manure for growing carrots, since you get not very beautiful and poorly stored root crops. Humus should be applied to poor soil - a bucket per square meter. If the groundwater is close, the bed is made high.

The arable layer is well formed with the help of green manure roots - plants that create a good soil structure. They are sown in the garden in the fall, in order to plant carrots in this place in the spring. Also, worms and microorganisms create a good soil structure.

Carrot beds should be constantly changed. The predecessors should be garlic, onions, cabbage, potatoes. How to grow large carrots, if you have to grow the same crop in one place? This will help the introduction of wood ash twice a year in the amount of 0.2 kg / m 2, followed by digging.

In the spring, a week before planting, the bed is leveled, loosened, treated with a 0.3% solution of vitriol, watered with warm water, and then covered with a polyethylene film. During this time, it will retain moisture and warm up well in the sun.

How to prepare seeds for sowing

The germination rate of carrot seeds is low - 55-75%. In this regard, the seeds should be taken fresh. In addition, carrots do not germinate evenly. The first shoots should appear in 2-3 weeks. Seeds germinate for a long time due to the presence of essential oils on their surface, which slow down the penetration of moisture.

Before growing, you need to prepare for sowing. Let's consider several ways to pre-germinate them.

Soak

The seeds are poured into cloth bags and kept in warm water for 24 hours. The water must be changed every four hours. A nutrient solution can be made from it by adding wood ash (30 g / l). After that, the seeds must be rinsed.

The method will be more effective if you additionally harden. Seeds in wet bags are placed in the refrigerator for 2-5 days.

Soak with nutrient solution

Use a weak solution of potassium permanganate with the addition of ½ teaspoon of fertilizer per liter of water or a mixture of nitrophoska and boric acid(1/3 teaspoon and 1/2 teaspoon per liter of water, respectively). The seeds are scattered on a gauze folded several times, and also covered with it on top and poured with a solution for a day. The liquid level should be just above the fabric. Then they are washed with water and refrigerated for three to four days.

If the weather does not allow planting seeds, they are left on the bottom shelf of the refrigerator, keeping them hydrated all the time. In this case, you need to ensure that they do not germinate more than 0.5 cm.

Heat treatment

Heat treatment of seeds consists in their successive immersion in hot and cold water... They are poured into a bag and rinsed at a temperature of 50 degrees, and then dipped in a humate solution and kept warm for two days. As a result, the germination of not only carrots, but also parsley and dill is accelerated.

Bubbling

Sparging speeds up the seed preparation process. An air or oxygen supply hose with an emery stone filter at the end is brought to the bottom of a non-metallic container with water. A mesh with seeds is placed on top.

In the process of bubbling, the water is saturated with air. At home, a small aquarium compressor is enough for this. The time for bubbling carrot seeds is 17-24 hours. After that, the material is removed to the middle shelf of the refrigerator, where it is stored for 3-5 days. Before sowing, the seeds are dried for 12 hours to make them free-flowing, and sown.

Burying seeds in the soil

Dry seeds are placed in cloth bags and buried in the ground with a shovel to the depth of one bayonet, where they should be for at least 10-12 days. Then they are taken out and sown in the garden bed. After such treatment, seedlings should appear in five days.

Another method is to mix the seeds with moist peat and keep them in a warm place for at least one week. During this period, they have time to germinate, after which they are sown. Before planting in the ground, the seeds are dried for 20-25 minutes on parchment or cloth at room temperature.

How to grow carrots. Sowing and Care Secrets

Before planting, seeds are selected and purchased that are most suitable for a particular region. You can also get them yourself. Before growing carrot seeds, find a good and large root vegetable and then plant it in the spring. It will ripen by autumn.

Carrots grow for about three months. To get a harvest in September, planting should be done no later than May. Sowing dates are from late April to early June. Landing before May 5 is considered optimal.

Before winter, carrots are planted when the soil becomes cold enough. This can be from late October to early November. Sowing and harvesting times depend on the variety and region. Northern varieties should not be planted in the south as they will grow slowly. If grown in middle lane southern varieties, they give abundant tops, and root crops do not develop at the same time. Some varieties bred abroad are poorly stored.

Should be done on time, otherwise beneficial features and keeping quality of root crops may deteriorate.

Small carrot seeds need to be spread evenly in the groove. Therefore, they are mixed with sand or peat and sown in a garden bed.

So that neighboring rows do not interfere with her growing? To ensure sufficient illumination, it is better to make the beds narrow - no more than four rows of carrots.

Bumpers are made along the edge to prevent water from flowing off. The distance between the rows should be 15 cm, and for late varieties - 20 cm. The bed is watered and sprinkled with ash. The seeds are placed in the grooves at a distance of about 2.5 cm.

In spring-summer plantings, the swollen seeds are planted shallowly - by 3-4 cm. They should be sprinkled with very light soil, which is used as black soil mixed with peat, sand or humus. Then, a ventilation gap is made of film over the bed at a distance of about 12-15 cm.

The first shoots in warm weather appear in a week. If the temperature is below 12 degrees, the time is doubled. If there are vacant places, additional sowing is done.

For many gardeners, the question of how to grow early carrots is a problem. In fact, it is not difficult. In the fall, early varieties of carrots are sown to a depth of 2 cm, and then sprinkled with mulch to a height of 3-4 cm. In this case, the soil temperature should be below +5 degrees. When there is little snow in winter, the beds are additionally covered with it to a height of 50 cm.With this method of planting, the crop is harvested earlier the usual time for 2-3 weeks.

Thinning of plants

How to grow a good harvest of carrots if they sprout perfectly? To do this, you need to do a thorough thinning of the seedlings after the appearance of the third leaf.

All this is not as simple as it seems at first glance. In order for the plants to be well removed, the garden should be watered and the soil should be carefully loosened. In addition, the operation should be performed during the day, so as not to attract a pest - a carrot fly that flies in the evening.

The sprouts should be removed with tweezers, leaving a distance of at least 2 cm. The smallest shoots are removed. The tops are thrown away from the garden. In no case should you leave it nearby, so as not to attract pests. Onion arrows are a good deterrent, which is chopped up and scattered around the garden. You can cover crops with special material. The ground around the plants is slightly crushed. After 20 days, the thinning is repeated. In this case, a distance of 6 cm is left between the carrots.

Row spacings need to be loosened and weeded (at least once a week) so that the roots receive a sufficient amount of oxygen. After thinning the aisles, mulch with compost or sawdust soaked for several weeks in a 2-3% urea solution.

How to grow large carrots? The correct dosage of fertilizers is needed here. They cannot be applied in large quantities at once. Carrot beds begin to fertilize with mineral water when 5-6 leaves appear. The frequency of feeding is 2-4 weeks. This culture is particularly disliked by excess nitrogen.

As it grows, the top of the root crop comes out of the ground and turns green. It doesn't hurt, but it tastes worse. How to grow sweet carrots so that they do not lose their taste? When root crops appear from the ground, they are huddled, raking up the earth on them with a height of about 50 mm.

Watering carrot beds

Poor germination of carrots is primarily associated with drying out of the soil. Until she has risen, the top layer of the bed should be constantly wet. Sometimes the soil should be watered even several times a day. Granular seeds are especially difficult to germinate. Immediately after sowing, the bed is protected with a foil so that the top layer does not dry out.

Until the roots appear, watering is done after 3-4 days, 3-4 buckets per 1 m 2. At the same time, they grow independently in depth and find moisture. Therefore, watering is carried out once a week at 1-2 buckets per m2, and from the end of August - once every 1.5-2 weeks at 8-10 liters per square. The beds are kept for two weeks without watering until harvest.

Rough root vegetables are an indicator that they lacked moisture. With an excess of it, the fruits grow small. Also harmful are sudden changes from drying to excess moisture, leading to cracking of the carrot and subsequent poor preservation.

Carrots are not afraid of cold weather, but at temperatures below 8 degrees, starch in root crops turns into sugar, keeping quality of root crops worsens. In the middle lane, the crop is harvested at the end of September in dry weather.

Harvested for 1.5-2 hours, and then cut off the tops. The harvest is sorted, even carrots are placed in a ventilated box in a dark and cool place. This can be a cellar or basement.

Conclusion

You can never get a good harvest if you don't know how to grow carrots. The secrets of agricultural technology are proper preparation soil, competent landing and care. As a result, you will get large and even root crops in the fall.

Growing carrots in your garden is easy. But in order to get stable, high and high-quality yields year after year, you will have to work hard, because not every year can be called "carrot".

The beds for planting carrots are prepared in the fall. Compost (4 kg per square meter) is scattered over the surface and dug up in the spring before sowing. A spoonful of ammonium sulfate, 2 tablespoons of superphosphate and 1 glass of ash are added per square meter.

Seeds of carrots germinate slowly, besides, out of hundreds of seeds, it is good if at least 70 will sprout. To speed up the emergence of shoots, carrots are processed before planting. The seeds are wrapped in cloth and immersed in cold water for a day. The water must be changed at least 6 times during these 24 hours. Finally, the seeds can be filled not with water, but with a solution of microelements.

The seeds of carrots often contain spores of microorganisms that cause disease. You can get rid of the infection by soaking the seeds in water with a temperature of 40-45 degrees for 5 minutes. Then the seeds are rinsed in cold water.

It is best to plant carrots outdoors early, while the ground is saturated with spring moisture. On clay soil, planting carrot seeds is carried out at a depth of one and a half to two centimeters, on sandy loam a little deeper. Early varieties sown at intervals between rows of 12-15 cm, mid-ripening and late-ripening 25-30 cm.

Carrots grow well on sandy loam and light loams with a neutral or slightly acidic reaction. On heavy soil, it is better to sow short-fruited carrots; on loose soil, any varieties work well, even long-fruited ones.

Planting carrots in the ground will be easier if you mix the seeds in half with sand and then pour the mixture into the grooves. In order not to perform a difficult and hard work on thinning, bending over the garden, many gardeners prefer comfortable conditions at home, sitting at the table, stick the seeds with flour paste on paper tapes made from toilet paper. Before planting, you will only need to make grooves, spread ribbons, cover with soil and water.

When the head of the root crop appears on the surface, hilling is carried out. Reception protects plants from overheating, sunburn and greening. Hilling is repeated twice more per season. The final hilling should result in a 4-5 cm layer of soil covering the heads of the root crops.

On acidic soils, the beds have to be limed, since carrots prefer slightly acidic and neutral soil. It is enough to add 300 g of fluff per sq. m., but you cannot lime under carrots - you need to dig up a bed of lime under the previous culture. Therefore, it is convenient to grow carrots in a crop rotation after cabbage, because a lot of organic matter is introduced under the cabbage, and it (like a carrot) prefers soils with a neutral reaction.

Neighborhood features

Carrots should not be sown after celery and parsnips. You cannot sow it in the beds where carrots also grew last year. The plant feels well in the beds after vegetables, under which humus was introduced a year earlier.

Growing carrots

Agricultural technology for growing carrots includes crop rotation. Growing carrots in the old place is possible no earlier than three summer cottages. This protects the plants from pests and diseases.

Carrots are unpretentious and require minimal maintenance. However, you need to take care of her correctly. Learn how to prepare seeds for planting, how to grow carrots and not give them away to pests.

Seed selection

Growing carrots begins with the selection of seeds. They are sold in different types: there are ordinary seed bags, pellets and seeds taped on the tape. Many gardeners do not like to plant pellets and ribbons because they have poor germination. So go for traditional bagged seeds. Pay attention to the colored seeds, they are treated with a fungicide, do not require pre-sowing treatment. In addition, it is easier to place them in the grooves without thickening the crops.

There are many varieties and hybrids of carrots. The most popular ones are:
Nantes;
Losinoostrovskaya 13;
Chantenay 2461;
Vitamin 6;
Samson.

If you want to collect seeds in the future, then use only varietal carrots. Hybrids in the next generation lose their characteristics.

The soil

Loamy soil is most suitable for carrots.

It will be difficult for her to germinate on heavy clay soil, so in such conditions it is better to make a bed-box. In the fall, the earth must be dug up here, and in the spring, compost and humus must be added.

Sandy soil is too light to hold the moisture needed for carrots. Therefore, here, too, you need to raise the bed and fill it annually with sod soil and compost.

Sunny places are allocated for carrots, thick shade is avoided. It is good if onion or nightshade crops were grown on the plot allocated for planting last year. After the umbrella carrots are not planted.

Acidic soils are limed in the fall - they are applied per square meter in a glass of chalk, lime-fluff, or dolomite flour, after dug up. Ash also helps to reduce acidity.

Fertilizers are planted in spring during soil preparation. Use organic (except for manure) and complex mineral fertilizers in recommended doses. From organic matter, humus (0.5 buckets / m²) and peat (1 bucket / m²) are suitable.

Seed preparation

Growing carrots is not a tricky business, but there are secrets here too.

Nature, with the help of essential oils, protected its seeds from premature shoots. Open the seed bag and inhale the scent. The more intense it is, the more oils and the fresher the seeds. For the carrots to sprout faster, the essential oils just need to be washed off. For this, the seeds are soaked in water or in a solution of potassium permanganate, in a solution of the drug "Epin" or even in vodka. Who is in that much.

Presowing seed preparation is different, and each gardener needs to experimentally find the best way to grow carrots. Here are three tried and tested methods that you might find useful.

The first way

This is the simplest way to prepare seeds:
1.heat the water to 50-60 ° C;
2. Soak the seeds for 10-15 minutes, stir occasionally;
3. remove everything that has surfaced;
4. drain the water, dry the seeds and sow.

In good weather, the carrots will germinate in a maximum of 4 days.

Second way

This option will take a little longer:
1. Soak the seeds in water or in Epin for two hours;
2. put them in a tight cotton bag;
3. Bury the shovel on the bayonet in the ground for 1-2 weeks;
4. Dig up and mix a tablespoon of seeds with half a glass of sand and a few seeds of a radish or salad;
5. Sow in the furrows in the garden bed.

After such underground imprisonment, the seeds will swell well or give roots. So you will increase germination, and in the near future you will thin out crops less. Lettuce or radish grows faster than carrots, so you always know where the furrows are. This is convenient when you need to loosen the ground, and the seedlings are still too small.

The third way

Many gardeners are trying to fully optimize the cultivation of carrots in the open field. To do this, they independently make tapes with proven seeds:
soak the seeds in a gauze bag for 2-3 days;
rinse regularly, then dry;
boil the paste from flour and water;
take toilet paper, unwind it to the required length;
apply drops of paste on the strip at a distance of 2 cm;
put a carrot seed in a drop of paste (several seeds are possible);
dry the strip for 10-15 minutes.

Then place the tapes in wet furrows 2 cm deep, cover with earth and tamp. Can be spilled again with water. The paper will naturally decompose and the seeds will sprout.

This is a tedious method, but it has advantages. You will have to thin out seedlings less. Kleister will not let the seeds "scatter" around the bed, so if you wish, you can even calculate the amount of the crop.

Planting carrots: in spring or before winter?

Growing carrots is usually started in the spring. Seeds are sown from late April to early June - the timing depends on the variety and growing goals. In the southern regions, the season begins in March, the second sowing is carried out in June.

Planting carrots before winter helps to get a harvest in the middle of July in most of Russia. However, this has its drawbacks: the seeds may freeze out and not sprout; if the seeds have sprouted, then return spring frosts can destroy them.

If you have a desire to experiment, remember that you need to increase the seed consumption by 30, or even 50%. Prepare the bed in advance, make grooves and wait for frost. Sow seeds in frozen ground and cover with pre-prepared soil stored at freezing temperatures.

The standard scheme for growing carrots: grooves with a gap of 20 cm. They are cut on raised beds (especially in damp places) or on a flat surface. In the spring, before sowing, the grooves are well watered (in autumn they are planted in dry ones), the seeds are laid out, and covered with loose soil. To accelerate germination, the crops are covered with spunbond, it retains moisture and prevents the formation of a soil crust. After the emergence of sprouts, the shelter is removed.

Care

When growing carrots, certain rules must be followed. This applies to most garden crops.

The surface of the earth should be loose so that water flows freely to the roots. If you notice a hard crust on the bed, loosen it up. Typically, this crust forms after watering.

The soil must be moist. Carrots will not grow if they "float" in the garden bed or are thirsty while sitting in dry ground.

Carrots are not watered often, but deeply, so that the root crop grows straight down, and does not look for moisture at the surface, does not curl and does not separate.

Regardless of how you planted carrots, its shoots need to be thinned out. It is almost impossible to avoid this. Therefore, to obtain large root crops, leave a distance of 5 cm between them. If you need a small carrot, the distance between shoots is 2 cm. Thinning is usually done like this: just pull out the weakest seedlings with your fingers. Some gardeners have adapted to cut out unnecessary seedlings with nail scissors.

If the carrot is planted in poor soil, it should be fed with complex mineral fertilizer, it is good if it is a special top dressing for root crops. Carrots will accept 1-2 feeding per season with gratitude.

Pests

Growing carrots outdoors often becomes a struggle for crop integrity.

The carrot fly is a real disaster for gardeners. For many years, you can grow carrots and not know the troubles, but at one "not beautiful" moment everything changes. The tops begin to curl and dry out. And the larvae of this insect begin to eat up the pulp of the root crop.

In some cases, late sowing of carrots in mid-June or planting plants with a strong odor on the garden bed with carrots can help: onions, marigolds, cilantro, garlic.

However, the most effective way to protect yourself from flies is to mulch the garden. After planting, it must be covered with a non-woven covering material. As soon as the seedlings grow up, you need to cover the ground with sawdust or shavings in a layer of 5 cm. Do not tighten up with shelter! The main thing is to prevent the fly from reaching the ground, where it lays the larvae. In summer, add mulch if necessary, because the fly is active for most of the season.

Collection and storage

Harvesting in different regions happens at different times, but usually you need to have time to remove the carrots before frost.

It is easy to determine the technical ripeness of carrots: the rosette of leaves from erect turns into a spreading one. This transformation occurs 90-130 days from germination, depending on the variety.

However, you can eat carrots earlier. Bunch ripeness occurs on 50-65 days.

Spill the dry beds well a week before digging so that the carrots go juicy for storage. If heavy rains are expected, dig up the carrots before they start to keep the crop from rotting.

Growing carrots correctly is half the battle. The remaining half is for storage of the crop. Remember, if you don't have a cellar, don't plant a lot. If there is one, and it is cool, and the air is well ventilated, proceed as follows:

Cut the tops off about 1-5 mm from the top on each carrot;
wash and dry root vegetables, do not keep them in bright sun for a long time to keep them juicy;
remove all thin roots so that the carrot does not start growing during storage (you can rub the root vegetable with a gloved hand);
place the carrots vertically in crates of dry sand.

Other ways to store carrots:
1.Grate it and put it in the freezer;
2. store a bag of whole carrots on a shelf in the refrigerator;
3. put in a box on the glazed balcony;
4. Store in dry sawdust in a plastic bucket on the balcony (a layer of sawdust - a layer of carrots).

Conclusion

To get a harvest of carrots, you need to properly plant the seeds and thin out the seedlings once. Be sure to monitor the moisture content of the ground and avoid the formation of a hard crust. Mulch the soil in time and save yourself from frequent loosening, watering and fighting carrot flies. And, most importantly, plant as much as you can process so that your work is not in vain.