Some people find planting and growing carrots a difficult task, especially for beginners, but it can be easily accomplished if you follow a few tips and tricks.
Once you understand what your carrots need, you will be able to grow them.
Carrots sprout incredibly slowly
Have you ever planted carrots and then waited, waited, waited and nothing happened, says Anastasia Kovrizhnykh .
This is partly due to the very long time it takes carrots to germinate. Fourteen days and no sprouts in sight?
Carrots do take time to germinate, but to make sure the seeds grow well underground, you can use a little trick.
Mark the rows of carrot seedlings
Simply mix radish or dill seeds with carrot seeds before sowing. Both radishes and dill germinate very quickly.
You can see at a glance where your germination row is and where you need to water.
And, first of all, you will make sure that the carrot seeds have good conditions for germination, i.e. they receive, for example, enough moisture during the germination period.
Radishes ripen quickly, so you can pick them young so they don't take up space in the garden. Dill is thin enough not to interfere with the growth of carrots.
Reduce carrot sprouting time
You can reduce the time it takes for carrots to sprout by pre-sprouting them.
If you choose this method, you do not need to add radish or dill seeds.
To do this you will need the following:
- 1 jar with lid
- 2 tbsp sand
- water
- carrot seeds
Here's what you need to do to germinate seeds:
- Mix carrot seeds with wet sand, fill the jar with the mixture and close it.
- Place the jar in a warm, light place for three days - no more.
- In a warm and humid atmosphere, carrot seeds begin to actively germinate; if you sow them now, the shoots will appear much faster.
- To sow, make a furrow one centimeter deep in the garden bed and spread the carrot-sand mixture in it.
Save yourself the trouble of thinning carrots
Carrot seeds are very small, so they are often sown too close together. If the seedlings are not thinned out radically in time, they do not have enough space to grow. With a mixture of sand and carrots, you automatically get more space between the carrot plants.
If thinning does occur, the distance between carrot plants should be two to three centimeters.
Conditions for the germination of carrot seeds
Different plants require planting at different depths, so it's important to know how deep to place seeds in the soil to get optimal germination conditions.
As a general rule, it can be said that the smaller the seeds, the more likely they are to germinate in the light.
This does not mean that the small carrot seeds need to be as bright as daylight to germinate, as light penetrates through the soil layer. However, you should not sow the seeds deeper than two or three centimeters.
Due to the shallow sowing depth, the seeds unfortunately dry out easily. This is a problem especially if you want to plant carrots in a raised bed.
Watering starts the germination process, but if the top layer of soil dries out, the seedlings may die.
There is also a simple trick here that will help your carrots sprout safely.
Coat the carrot seeds
Cover the carrot seeds with cardboard or a wooden board for the first four to five days. Just make sure the soil is moist beforehand.
No later than after the fourth day, you should check once a day to see if seedlings have appeared.
For pre-germinated seeds, checking should begin even earlier. As soon as the first shoots appear, the cover should be removed.
Now carrot sprouts are not so sensitive to lack of moisture. They can independently search for water in deeper layers of the soil with their roots. However, you need to continue to make sure that the carrot sprouts do not dry out.
If you think that germination in the light and the coating are at odds with each other, you need to know that enough UV light penetrates the coating to start the germination process. Try it, it works.
Sowing in moist soil
One last tip to help you succeed when planting carrots. Water the area you are going to plant thoroughly before you sow the seeds. Carrot seeds are very small.
If you water them too much after sowing, they may be washed away into the deep layers of the soil and problems with germination will arise. Therefore, it is better to water the soil in advance and press the seeds so that they come into good contact with the moist soil.
Earlier we wrote about how the flower in each purchased orchid pot is slowly being killed.
Expert: Anastasia Kovrizhnykh
