carrots/how to?

[spitfire]

need help on carrot seed planting in the spring. the carrots i grew this year were terrible, small and planted way too close together, so i was wondering if anyone remembers the episode from the good life where tom and barbara planted seeds in wallpaper paste? do's that work? would flour and water work? if so i am thinking that it would help me space the carrots better, any suggestions?

[suziq]

and if i can tag on, how to grow from sproating carrot tops on my kitchen windowsill!

[Durgan]

need help on carrot seed planting in the spring. the carrots i grew this year were terrible, small and planted way too close together, so i was wondering if anyone remembers the episode from the good life where tom and barbara planted seeds in wallpaper paste? do's that work? would flour and water work? if so i am thinking that it would help me space the carrots better, any suggestions?

Carrot seed is very small as you know. The plants must be thinned or seeds planted carefully for adequate spacing. I spend the time in planting carefully so thinning is not necessary. For quality carrots if your soil is lousy, dig the soil out for about a foot depth and strain through a half inch screen and return.

Here is one method that I use to achieve good plant spacing.
Carrots
http://www.durgan.org/URL/?Carrots 10 April 2009 Planting Carrots
Carrots were planted type is Hybrid Carrot Eagle 92A from Stokes. (Belicum X Nantes Hybrid). The small seeds are spread carefully on top of a row of toilet paper, then lightly covered with fine soil. The method is utilized to improve uniformity of seed spacing, insuring a uniform depth, and possibly better germination all things considered. Carrots germinate at rather cool temperatures about 17 C is ideal. If the temperature is too high carrots will not germinate or germination is slow.

http://www.durgan.org/URL/?CarrotsS 23 June 2009 Carrots. The carrot row is thriving.

[spitfire]

thanks for the info Durgan, One question, do you seed on dry paper or wet it in first?

[Durgan]

thanks for the info Durgan, One question, do you seed on dry paper or wet it in first?

Usually I wet the paper, but prefer to do it dry, since it is easier to move clustered seeds when dry. But when dry the paper if moved, flips the seeds around so it is a bit of a catch 22. I place the seeds on a plate and try to pick only a few each try before I drop them on the paper. It is slightly tedious work, but much better than thinning the plants later in the season.

Initially I started out to make home seed tapes, but then found them wanting, so decided to direct seed on the paper.

Commercial seeds tapes are expensive and of limited variety, and a misery to handle-meaning the tapes break easily, and germination was found to be erratic. Also, I found the spacing to be far too large.

I have never found a good commercial hand seeder that separates carrot seeds better than one's own fingers.

[Jandra]

As to growing cattrots from sprouting carrot tips... you can't, I'm afraid. First year the carrot plant produces a carrot, next year it uses the stored nutrients to flower, not to make new carrots. So perhaps you could get the carrot top to flower...


Jandra

[grahamhobbs]

The traditional way to sow carrot seed is to mix the seed with some dry sand and then sprinkle the mixture into the drill. The trick being to estimate the amount of seed you need for the row, then you know that when the seed/sand mix has been dribbled out along the whole row you should get a reasonable spread of seed.
The sand may also help with the other tip I was told, which is that carrot seed doesn't like to be watered / rained upon whilst germinating. So the soil needs to thoroughly dampened beforehand, so that it doesn't dry out, but the sand will help in avoiding the seed being too damp and rotting.

[catboy]

we had a lot of good carrots this year, one variety called purple haze was especially good. We didnt germinate before hand, just mixed the seed with sand and sprinkled the sand into a trough in the soil BUT the trick is to mix the soil the seeds go into with 50% sand. basically dig down about 8 inched, get the soil out and mixed with sand and then put back in, dig a V shape in that, get your seed sand mix in and cover very lightly....that way you wont get the roots splitting. but you really need to thin em...

[Peggy Sue]

One old boy down our allotment remembers his Dad using an old washing up liquid bottle, throughly dried. You can squeeze out a seed at a time without handling the seed (apparently the salt on your hands stops germination).

Never tried it, just sprinkle away and get crowded carrots all cuddles up together

[JulieSherris]

This year we had 2 beds turned over for carrots..... I had some heritage yellow carrots, some shop bought seeds & a couple of carrot tapes...... the carrots from the tape were ok..... most were fairly straight & spaced ok..... the yellow carrots... some grew HUGE!! Again, most were straight & never forked, and again with the shop seeds - a really decent crop all round, I thought! Yay!!

My secret was to sow them VERY carefully indoors - in toilet rolls!!
Hubby sieved the soil for the new beds to within an inch of it's life, so the soil was really loose & stone free - I daresay that also contributed to the shape of the carrots & when it was time to transplant the carrots outside, the loo rolls made sure that they were spaced with enough room - I just scraped a small trench & lined the rolls along the trench.... pushed the soil back around & over & waited.......

I did the same with the parsnips as well - and they've done great as well, so will definitely be using the loo roll method again - ok, it takes an extra hour when sowing - but what's an extra hour when it means that you get a great harvest?

As for saving your own seed.... you choose a couple or 6 of your best carrots - store them over winter & then plant them once again next spring.... wait for them to flower & harvest the seeds for the following year. I have a few carrots in a sandbox waiting... roll on next april/may

[MuddyWitch]

The loo roll trick works for peas as well, to stop the pesky mice eating your seeds. I see it as a job I can do on a rainy day, so not a waste of time at all.

MW

[JulieSherris]

And speaking of mice.... this little kitty here caught her first one yesterday.... ..... and then let it go again.......