Growing and planting Carrots
Growing and planting Carrots is a very difficult job it takes a lot of work to grow the perfect carrot.
When to plant Carrots
Early crops can be planted indoors between February and March, but the main planting time outside is May- July. Most seed packets will state when the best time is to plant them.
Varieties of Carrots
Rainbow – these are multi-colored. They will be strange to look at on the eye but are a great variety to grow.
Autumn King 2 and Early Nantes are also a great variety to grow.
Planting Carrots
The best advice for planting carrots is to plant them straight into the place you want to grow them. They need to be sown at around 2 cm deep and around 16cm apart. They will then not need thinning out once they start growing. But if you do plant them close together pull some out every so often when they are bay carrots. For regular cropping plant every three weeks.
Growing Carrots
Growing carrots can be a very tricky job, and to get the perfect carrot is not easy! Keep carrots soil evenly moist this prevents the roots from splitting. Always make sure they are weeded well as the weeds can overwhelm the carrots.
The major pest for carrots is the dreaded carrot fly. If you grow your carrots in the place you want them to start off helps prevent the carrot fly coming when you plant them as they can smell the carrots. The females lay eggs in the soil and these then turn to maggots which eat the carrots and make them rot – then there is no way of saving them. The best way to prevent carrot fly is to get some fleece and place it over the top of the plants making sure you bury it into the soil so there is no way of them getting into your crop. Planting other smelly plants round the carrots can help like onions or spring onions this will confuse the carrot fly.
Harvesting Carrots
The time it takes for the carrots to grow between sowing and harvesting is around 16-18 weeks, it is best not to grow them really big as you are loosing the flavor in the carrot also making more of a chance for the carrot fly to come and attack them.
Growing and planting Carrots – as you can tell its very hard to grow carrots, hopefully you will have great success.