How to grow carrots in open ground. How to grow productive carrots

Secrets of cultivation great harvest carrots

Carrot (lat. Daucus) is a biennial umbrella plant. The root crop ripens in the first year, and in the second year a seed bush is formed (for collecting seeds for sowing). Growing carrots requires following simple rules for caring for the crop, which will help you get a good and healthy harvest.

When to sow carrots in open ground

Early varieties of carrots (Kinby, Kolorit F1, Parmex, Touchon) can be sown and seedlings planted in open ground at the end of April, provided the weather is stable and there is no frost. These varieties are distinguished by their juiciness and sweetness; they are grown for cooking and eating.
Mid-season varieties (Viking, Nantes 4, Typhoon, Perfection) are suitable for longer storage of root crops; sowing them in open ground begins in the middle of the month, and planting seedlings in open ground can begin earlier, on May 8-10.
Late varieties (Selekta, Olympus, Java, Vita Longa, Valeria 5) are ideal for storage, transportation and preparation for the winter. Sowing occurs at the end of May, seedlings are planted in the second half.

In the northern regions, it is worth paying attention to climatic conditions, and if necessary, sowing is postponed for half a month.

Favorable days for sowing lunar calendar are May 3-4 and May 30-31, when the moon will be in its waxing phase (1st quarter). It is recommended to do all sowing work before lunch.

Selecting a location and preparing beds for carrots

Fertile and loose soils are best suited for growing carrots, namely loamy-sandy soils with a neutral acidity of 6-7 pH.

It is important that a crust does not form on the surface of the soil, preventing air access to the root crops. Therefore, surface loosening of the beds is important at all stages of cultivation.

High humidity soil can lead to the development of fungal diseases and a decrease in the taste of fruits. It is better to arrange high beds for carrots, or choose a place on a hill. Wetlands and places with stagnant water are not suitable.

Crop rotation rules for carrots

You should not plant vegetables in the same place for 2 years in a row. This significantly increases the likelihood of damage from pathogenic bacteria and pests.

Good predecessors for sowing carrots are: cucumbers, grains and legumes, any types of cabbage, tomatoes;
After growing most types of greens (fennel, caraway, parsley, dill, parsnips), it is not advisable to use these beds for sowing carrots.

Preparing the soil for sowing

Growing carrots in the country involves cultivating the soil in two stages. In the fall, the soil is loosened and, if necessary, mulched with sawdust. In the spring, before sowing, rotted manure is added to the soil in the amount of 1 bucket per two square meters of bed.

You can add to fertilizers:

If the soil is heavy, you can add 2-3 kg of sawdust - this will make it loose.
A small amount of wood ash(450-500 grams per square meter beds) will significantly improve the taste of vegetables and prolong the shelf life of the crop.

Nitrogen fertilizers - they increase the level of nitrates in vegetables and contribute to the coarsening of their tissues;
You cannot use fresh manure, as the root crops will begin to actively branch and become smaller. In addition, this will attract mole crickets.

Planting carrots in open ground

Many gardeners prefer to sow carrots directly from the package, but not all grains are of high quality and will germinate. Preliminary culling and pre-sowing preparation of planting material will save time, obtain better germination and stronger seedlings.

Seed preparation

Carrot seeds are rich in vegetable oils, which blocks moisture from reaching the embryo. It is recommended to pre-rinse and soak them. There are several methods for pre-sowing preparation of planting material.

Digging into the soil will help to significantly increase germination: the grains are placed in a fabric bag and placed in damp soil to a depth of 30 cm for 10 days; before sowing, they are removed and dried. The seeds swell well in damp soil and produce good shoots;
Pelleting is a nutritious coating that greatly facilitates the procedure of sowing small seeds and increases their germination. For preparation you will need: 0.2 kg of liquid mullein and powdered peat. Place a tablespoon of seeds in a liter jar and add 1 tablespoon of powder and manure, cover with a lid and shake thoroughly for several minutes. The procedure is repeated several times until a shell is formed on the seeds, after which they are dried and stored in a dry place until sowing;
Soaking in a nutrient solution (1 tablespoon of ash per 1 liter of warm water). The grains in bags are placed in liquid for a day, then kept on a damp cloth in the refrigerator for 3-4 days for stratification. Before sowing, the planting material is dried.

Advice when buying seeds from China through Aliexpress

Carrot planting technology

On pre-prepared beds, shallow furrows are made (up to 2 cm deep), the distance between them should be at least 15 cm;
For convenience, small seeds are mixed with sand and sown, keeping 3-4 cm gaps between grains. You can also sow in a continuous line - the “groove” method, and after emergence, thin them out;
The top of the planting is sprinkled with soil and compacted with a palm or a wide board.

It is recommended to cover the bed with film to maintain soil moisture and prevent weed growth. In warm weather conditions and preliminary preparation of planting material, the first shoots will appear on the 10-12th day. After this, it is necessary to remove the covering material, since young greenery can easily withstand short-term frosts.

Carrot cultivation and care in open ground

After sowing, the most important stage begins - caring for carrots. It is important to act systematically and follow agricultural techniques for growing crops.

Watering carrots requires special attention when grown in open ground. Lack of moisture can lead to the death of young plants. Excessive watering also has its disadvantages: the fruits overgrow and lose their taste.

After thinning, the amount of water is increased to 10 liters per square meter.
When the carrots form leaves, the roots begin to actively grow, then the water rate increases to 20 liters per unit area.
2 months before harvest, the frequency is reduced to 1 time every 2 weeks.

It is recommended to stop watering carrots 10-20 days before harvesting - this stimulates the roots to elongate. For the procedure, you must use only warm, settled water (ideally, melt water). It is recommended to water in the late afternoon, then the sun will not leave burns on the greenery.

Thinning carrots

The procedure is carried out on days 12 and 22 after germination. Small and weak plants remove, if this is not done, the root crops will be frail and thin.

Loosening and weeding

The procedures are carried out immediately after thinning.

Weeding frees up sunlight for green bushes;
Loosening will help better nutrition fruits

If the soil is not loosened, the root crops grow small and crooked.

Feeding carrots in open ground

When growing carrots, fertilizing is carried out 3-4 times during the entire growing season.

The first procedure is carried out when 3-4 leaves appear on the sprouts. To do this, use a solution ammonium nitrate(30 g per 10 liters of water).
The next feeding of carrots is carried out after 3-4 weeks using superphosphate (30 g per 10 liters of water).
Feeding carrots in June is necessary, since during this period the root crop grows especially quickly and gains juice. For fertilizing, you can use wood ash (a glass per square meter) or potassium sulfate.
The fourth procedure is performed at the moment the root crop ripens (usually in September, but the time may vary depending on the variety). You can use any fertilizers from those that were used previously, it is especially suitable boric acid(a tablespoon per bucket of water).

Feeding carrots folk remedies very popular among experienced summer residents. There are many recipes, many of which include yeast, nettles and ash. One of the most interesting infusions is prepared using all three components.

Triple Fertilizer Recipe for Carrots

The container is almost completely filled with nettles and filled with water to ¾ of the volume. For more intense fermentation, yeast or starter is added to the barrel. Potassium-rich ash will only complement the nutritional mixture. The mixture is stirred periodically and kept in the sun. To feed, 1 liter of the resulting liquid is diluted with 10 liters of water. The average fertilizer consumption is a bucket per bed.

Growing carrots in open ground video

Secrets of agricultural technology for growing carrots and a good harvest

Following a few simple nuances will greatly facilitate growing carrots in open ground in the Moscow region.

It is necessary to follow the rules of crop rotation;
It is recommended to disinfect seeds that you have prepared yourself before sowing in a 1% iodine solution;
Give preference to proven and disease-resistant varieties;
Buy seeds and seedlings from companies you trust;
When purchasing new varieties on foreign sites, first check them for germination, and when sowing in open ground, do not allocate more than 10% of the beds for them;
Carry out preventive spraying with the drug “Baikal” or nettle infusion against pests and diseases.

Bottom line

Good preparation soil and seed material will guarantee good germination. And proper agricultural technology and caring for carrots in the open ground will provide you with a good and high-quality harvest.

Carrots belong to plants of the Apiaceae family. The homeland of carrots is Central Asia, from where this plant spread first to the Mediterranean, and then throughout the world. This plant has been included in the human diet for more than four thousand years. Currently, there are more than a thousand varieties and varieties of this plant, grown in the national economy of almost all countries of the world. Planting and caring for carrots are distinguished by their simplicity, which, along with excellent culinary qualities, has ensured carrots a place in the top ten most popular vegetables on the planet.

Description of the plant

In nature, there are varieties of carrots in the form of annual or biennial plants. Most varieties are biennial varieties. In the first year of life, carrots form a rosette of several leaves and a large root crop; in the second year of life, the plant begins to produce seeds

Root vegetable carrots have a conical or cylindrical shape. It consists of fleshy plant tissue that has a sweetish taste. The weight of the root crop can vary widely (from 30 g to almost a kilogram).

Inflorescences Carrots look like umbrellas, consisting of many small white or white-yellow flowers. Fruit carrots are an achene about 4 cm long, which contains several hundred small seeds.

Carrot roots not only have good taste, but also contain many substances useful for human life, such as carotene, flavonoids, vitamins A and B, and ascorbic acid.

Carrots are used in almost all cuisines of the world, not only as a side dish, but also as a spice. It also finds application not only in cooking, but also in the pharmaceutical industry, traditional and folk medicine. Carrot juice is used as an adjuvant therapy in the treatment of metabolic diseases, heart and vascular diseases, as well as vision diseases.

Planting carrots

General issues

When growing carrots, the main thing is to decide what kind of carrots you need. The existing variety of carrot varieties allows you to obtain harvests almost throughout the entire season: from super early to extremely late. Usually, late varieties carrots have greater shelf life, that is, they are much more suitable for long-term storage.

If you plan to eat young carrots in the summer, you need to use early-ripening varieties. If we are talking about supplies for the winter or next year– late-ripening varieties are used.

The choice of variety will determine the entire sequence of actions when growing a vegetable. Some methods used for growing early varieties are not applicable to late varieties and vice versa. Naturally, the timing of sowing vegetables indirectly depends on the timing of ripening.

Traditionally, three schemes for planting carrots are considered depending on the ripening period:

early carrots are planted either in the fall (the so-called “before winter” method), or in mid-spring, usually in the 2-3rd decade of April
mid-season carrots are planted a little later - 1-2 decades of May
late ripening varieties can be sown from the beginning of May to the end of June

In the latter case, you should not be afraid of long growing periods, which for carrots can last up to 4 and a half months. Compliance with all the rules of agricultural technology will allow carrots to ripen and gain vitamins before the 2-3rd decade of September.

Growing conditions and location

Illumination

Carrots prefer well-lit areas. Moreover, the term “prefers” is hardly appropriate here: carrots must be grown with maximum lighting. There should not even be a hint of shadow or partial shade. The plant's exposure to sunlight should be at least 75% of the daylight hours. Therefore, the optimal area for planting carrots is the southern slope of the site, devoid of high vegetation on all sides except the northern.

On the north side of the area allocated for carrots, it is allowed to plant some kind of natural fence, for example, in the form of a hedge of corn or nightshades. You can also place cucumbers on trellises in this place. All this will create additional protection plot with carrots from the cold wind.

Soil for planting

The soil for carrots should have neutral or close to neutral acidity. Growing carrots on alkaline soils is not allowed. Therefore, liming of excessively acidic soils should be done with caution. You should not use lime for liming; it is better to use wood ash. However, its application rates should not exceed 120-150 g per 1 square meter. m.

The soil for carrots should be moderately fertile, however, it should not be over-fertilized with particularly active fertilizers. This applies to both organic and mineral fertilizers. It is strictly forbidden to use fresh, unrotted manure (even applied last year), as well as any type of saltpeter, to fertilize carrots. Such restrictions are due to the fact that at an early stage of ripening, carrots very vigorously absorb nitrates from the soil, which, naturally, will negatively affect the quality of the product. In general, any excess nitrogen is undesirable for carrots; The plant has enough strength to ensure its growth and vegetation on its own, without nitrogenous fertilizing.

The soil structure for carrots also has one feature: the vegetable grows best on hard and compacted soils.

Separately, it should be said about the predecessors of carrots. The ideal predecessors of carrots are vegetables that, like carrots, are good at extracting nitrogen from the soil. These include:

You should not grow carrots in the place where they already grew last season. Also undesirable predecessors of carrots include the following plants:

The use of legumes as a precursor to carrots (or simple green manure) also remains questionable. On the one hand, the soil after them is enriched with natural nitrogen, which, of course, is much better than nitrogen in the form of nitrates. On the other hand, as already noted, excess nitrogen is undesirable for carrots, since it will be aimed at producing an abundant green part of the plant, which can adversely affect the formation of the tuber.

Sometimes it is recommended to use green manure in the form of legumes if the carrots are planted in partial shade. In this case, excess nitrogen will be beneficial for the plant, since it can compensate for the lack of lighting. In other cases, it is not recommended to use legumes as a predecessor to carrots.

Using beds

Effectively growing carrots has several nuances. Firstly, carrots do not like excessive soil moisture; the soil must be well drained. Secondly, optimal temperature carrot planting ranges from +12°C during the day to +5°C at night. In addition, carrots are planted in rows.

Taking into account the above, it is advisable to grow carrots in garden beds. Conventionally, their height should be no less than the length of ripe root crops of the selected variety (from 15 to 25 cm). The width of the beds depends on the number of rows of vegetables planted. On average, about 30-40 cm of bed width should be allocated per row.

In this case, the optimal solution would be to grow carrots in two rows in beds 60-80 cm wide and 20-30 cm high. There are no restrictions on the length of the bed - it all depends on the configuration of the site and the ease of its maintenance and watering.

Read also:

How to make and decorate beautiful garden beds with your own hands: simple, tall, smart. For flowers and vegetables. Original ideas (80+ Photos & Videos) + Reviews

Preliminary soil preparation

Regardless of which planting method is used, the soil for carrots requires preliminary preparation. It involves digging up the area to a depth of about 25 cm. In this case, it is necessary to thoroughly loosen the soil and remove the remnants of the weed root system from it.

After which organic fertilizers (for example, humus or compost) are added to it and the area is dug up again. If liming of the soil is necessary, it is carried out simultaneously with the application of fertilizers. Sometimes, in the case of excessively viscous soils, it is allowed to add some sand to the site.

When planting in beds, it is advisable to completely fill the bottom layer of soil with compost or humus to a height of about 3-5 cm, which will increase soil fertility and provide carrots necessary set nutrients for almost the entire season.

If organic fertilizers are not available, you should resort to mineral fertilizers. However, you should not be too zealous, especially with regard to nitrogen.

Fertilizer consumption rates per square meter. m of carrot plot are as follows:

All processes for preliminary soil preparation should be completed at least two weeks (in the fall, perhaps more) before the planned planting of seeds, so that the soil has time to settle and compact.

Read also:

The importance of superphosphate as a mineral fertilizer in the care of tomatoes, potatoes, seedlings and other crops. Ways to use it in the garden (Photo & Video) + Reviews

Planting in spring

Seed preparation

When planting in spring, a mandatory procedure is the preliminary preparation of seeds. Carrot seeds contain a certain amount of essential oils that limit the access of moisture to the embryo, so they begin to germinate quite late.

When using dry seeds, the first shoots will appear only 2-3 weeks after planting. To reduce this time, the seeds should be exposed to warm water several times, which will wash off this protective shell from them.

There are several ways to speed up seed germination:

Placing seeds in natural conditions

The seeds are placed in a fabric bag and buried in the ground to a depth of approximately 20 cm a week before sowing. When the time comes for sowing, they are removed and dried for an hour. After which they can be planted in open ground. This is the easiest way; with it, the seeds become swollen, their size increases slightly and it is much easier to work with them. With such preparation, seedlings appear within 3-5 days.

Bubbling seeds

A bubbler is a special device designed to pass air or gas bubbles through a liquid. In gardening, this device can be used to stimulate seed growth. If an “industrial” bubbler is not available, you can make it yourself.

Seeds are placed in a container with warm water, and atmospheric air is supplied into it using an aquarium aerator. The process continues for about a day. After bubbling, the seeds are wrapped in a damp cloth and stored for 3-5 days in the refrigerator. Immediately before planting, they are taken out of the refrigerator and dried. This method allows you not only to speed up the germination process, but also to reject seeds that are unsuitable for planting - they will float up during the bubbling process.

Seed pelleting

With this method, the seeds are covered with a special nutrient coating. It also makes sowing easier (as the size of the planting material increases) and reduces the amount of seed per unit area. Ready-made pelleted seeds can be purchased at the store, or you can make them yourself.

To coat 2 tablespoons of carrot seeds, you need to take the following components:

1 cup liquid mullein
1.5 cups peat
1 glass of humus

The seeds are placed in a liter jar and 1/3 of each component is added to them, after which the jar is closed with a lid and shaken vigorously for three minutes. After which half of the remaining components are added to it, the jar is closed again and its contents are shaken again for 3 minutes. After this, the procedure is repeated with the remainder of the components.

As a result of this treatment, the seeds will be covered with a shell of nutritional composition. They should be laid out on a sheet of paper and dried. This method accelerating seed germination is considered the most effective.

Placing seeds in nutrient solution

Not the most effective, but the simplest and quick way preparing carrot seeds for planting. Typically, a dilution of 10-20 g per 1 liter of water is used as a solution. special means, which can be fertilizers such as sodium humate, the drug “Effekton” or the most common ash.

After the solution is ready, the seeds are immersed in fabric bags for about 1 day. After which the seeds are washed and placed in the refrigerator for several days, wrapped in paper cloth. Immediately before planting in the ground, the seeds are completely dried.

Boarding time

Carrots can be planted at a time other than the “traditional” one. Carrot seeds can germinate already at +4-6°C, so some correction of planting dates relative to the end of April is allowed. Seeds in the soil can tolerate frosts down to -6°C, so there is no need to worry too much about their fate after planting.

It makes no sense to delay planting in warm climates until late dates, unless this is due to either growing the crop by a certain date, or delaying the ripening period as much as possible in order to extend the shelf life accordingly.

There are also recommendations for planting carrots in different types of soil, depending on their density. It is believed that harder soils are better suited for growing late-ripening varieties of carrots, where they should be planted no later than the first days of May. On medium-heavy soils, carrots can be planted until the first half of May, and on light soils - until the end of May.

Work on the site

After the soil and seeds have been prepared for sowing and the right time has arrived, we proceed directly to planting. Seeds are planted to a depth of about 2-3 cm in light sandy or sandy loam soils. In heavy loams, seeds should be deepened no more than 1.5-2 cm.

The distance between the rows can be selected based on the size of the plot or each specific bed, however, it should not be less than 20 cm. Otherwise, the plants of neighboring rows will not only interfere with each other, but also the process of cultivating the land between the rows will be significantly complicated.

Seeds are planted at a distance of approximately 3-4 cm relative to each other. Maintaining such a distance is quite difficult, so landing methods are often used that slightly “automate” the process.

One such method is the so-called belt method landings. Its essence is as follows: dried carrot seeds prepared for planting are glued onto pre-prepared strips of paper at the required interval of 3-4 cm. Gluing is done using paste. For these purposes, any thin paper is used (toilet paper is often used).

When the paste dries, the paper is rolled up. When planting on a bed, in this case, not holes are prepared, but entire grooves, the depth of which corresponds to the density of the soil. A moistened tape with seeds is placed in this groove.

The seeds are covered with a layer of soil and compacted slightly. After which they are lightly watered and the soil is mulched with straw, hay or sawdust in a layer of about 3 cm. Mulching is necessary so that a soil crust does not form over the germinating seeds.

In some cases, when tape planting, when a tape with glued seeds is placed in an earthen furrow, one granule of a complex compound is placed next to each seed. mineral fertilizer- this will help the plant to form faster.

Planting in autumn

Planting carrots in winter has several advantages. Firstly, it does not require much thought about what time and what to sow. Whenever this happens, the seeds will not hatch and grow until spring arrives. Secondly, during winter planting, no measures are taken to prepare seeds at all, since during their wintering under snowy winter soil, all processes - from stratification to swelling and germination - will be supervised by nature itself.

Obviously, this method of planting, which frees the owner from complex and responsible activities, also has its downside. Unfortunately, it exists: in this way, only early and early ripening varieties of carrots can be grown, which cannot be stored for a long time.

Usually, autumn planting produced in the third ten days of October or the first ten days of November. The previously described soil preparation for planting in some cases (lack of rain, frequent cold snaps and weather changes) should be carried out not two weeks, but a month before the planned planting.

All activities in the garden bed are completely similar to planting in the spring. And the depth of the soil, and the sequence of actions, and possible application alternative methods landings - all this remains valid. However, as a material for mulch in the case of winter planting, you should use not ordinary covering materials, but their nutritious “analogues”.

These can be peat or humus. The mulch layer in this case is also 3 cm.

Almost all summer residents plant carrots. This is understandable, because root vegetables occupy one of the important places in any kitchen. And there is nothing complicated about planting carrots. I poured the seeds into the garden bed and waited for the harvest. However, everything is not so simple. This article will tell you about some of the secrets of growing and caring for carrots in open ground, what needs to be done before sowing, and also how to deal with uninvited guests.

What to consider when planting carrots in open ground with seeds.
Soil preparation.
Planting carrots with seeds in open ground.
Caring for carrots in open ground and proper watering of a carrot bed.
Disease and pest control.

What to consider when planting carrots in open ground with seeds

The carrot, familiar to all of us from childhood, is not such an easy vegetable to grow; it is quite capricious. To get a truly generous harvest, and the harvest to be preserved without loss, you need to take into account some serious points:

the bed with carrots should be located in the sunniest place; in shaded areas, carrots will grow poorly and will not produce a full-fledged vegetable;
to get sweet carrots for the table, you need to plant them in soil that is not oversaturated with acids;
excessive watering leads to the fact that the carrots begin to grow vigorously, but become coarser and become more likely to be fodder than table food;
I especially love this vegetable loose soil, otherwise, it will have a curved shape;
carrots do not like fresh manure, it causes it to bend, the root is deformed, which leads to an ugly shape of the fruit;
if long time Do not water carrots, they lose their juiciness and sweetness;
when, after a long dry period, abundant and frequent watering begins, the root crops crack;
without thinning, frail fruits grow that are not capable of long-term storage;
Rough thinning can lead to the fact that the neighboring (remaining) roots are deformed, and several ugly fruits grow from one carrot.

If you take these factors into account, carrots will please you with smooth and delicious fruits, which can be stored until the next harvest. But before you plant the seeds, you need to prepare the soil. Read: !

Soil preparation

A good owner begins to prepare beds for carrots in the autumn days. Beds for carrots should be made where cereals, cucumbers, beets, cabbage or corn used to grow. For a full harvest, only very well loosened soil is suitable. If the soil is light and not compacted, then you can simply go through it with a rake or, better yet, a flat cutter. In other cases, you should seriously engage in loosening, otherwise you will have to harvest crooked, small carrots.

To achieve a bed with light and lush soil, the soil is mixed with compost, peat or sand. You can add manure, but it must be well rotted. Carrots do not like fresh manure and will respond to its application with thick and dense tops, thick-skinned fruits, unpleasant taste, small and ugly shapes.

Since this vegetable does not tolerate acidic soils, it is worth adding dolomite flour or lime. It would be wise to add various fertilizers right from the fall. In the spring, such a bed should be thoroughly loosened again and only then sow the seeds.

Planting carrots with seeds in open ground

Some summer residents simply plant the seeds in the ground, however, it is much better to soak the carrot seeds for 3 - 4 days, and then dry them a little. This will identify non-germinating seeds and significantly speed up the germination process. Experienced gardeners themselves know how to plant carrots with seeds in open ground. But, since the seeds are very small and difficult to plant, gardeners have come up with some ways to ensure that small seeds lie evenly and do not all fall in one place.

Planting carrots in open ground with seeds is as follows:

most often the seeds are mixed with sand, they do not stick together and fall more evenly into the rows;
Each seed is glued to a roll of toilet paper with paste at the required distance; in the spring, such tapes are simply dropped into the garden bed;
prepare jelly from potato starch, place seeds in it and pour through the spout of the kettle into the prepared rows;
if the carrot seeds are coated, they are simply sown in the furrows.

In any case, the seeds are planted at a distance of 3–5 cm from each other in rows, and a distance of 15–20 cm should be maintained between the rows (grooves) themselves.

To prevent weeds from crushing tender seedlings, and to prevent moisture from evaporating and a crust forming on the soil, the crops are covered with film. Shoots appear at a temperature of 18 degrees after two weeks. Moreover, young shoots are not afraid of short-term frosts, but after a long cold period the plant stops growing roots and starts to bloom.

Caring for carrots in open ground and proper watering of carrot beds

Growing carrots and caring for them in open ground requires a certain systematicity. This especially applies to watering. It is very important to know how to water carrots in open ground. Indeed, if there is a lack of watering, young roots may not reach the water, and the seedlings will die, and overwatering threatens to turn tasty and juicy carrots into livestock feed. You need to water abundantly, but not often. When the carrots already form long roots, some gardeners stop watering them altogether. In this case, the roots rush straight down, forming straight and long roots.

Frequent, shallow watering contributes to the growth of hairy carrots and the fact that the fruit grows crooked. But weaning the plant from watering is also risky. If carrots are starved of water for a long time, and then suddenly a rainy period comes, all the fruits will crack. Watering carrots in open ground should not be frequent, but systematic. Already from the moment of the first shoots, carrots can be fed; they will gratefully accept it.

In addition to watering, thinning is necessary. When planted, small seeds sometimes fall so close to each other that they do not allow the fruits to fully develop. If you neglect thinning, the carrots will grow thin and frail, which will quickly rot during storage, and will be of little use for the table.

Caring for carrots in open ground contains another very important stage - loosening. As described above, carrots without this procedure grow crooked, small and ugly. Very often, loosening is combined with weeding or thinning. Weeding is also necessary to prevent strong weeds from shading the sprouts.

Disease and pest control

One of the vegetable pests is the carrot fly. In order to get rid of it, it is better to arrange the beds in advance in a windy place; the fly does not like winds. It is very advisable to plant carrots next to onions. And so that she doesn’t even look at the carrot bed, it’s better to sprinkle the bed hot pepper, gold or tobacco dust, with mown grass or straw.

Timely thinning and loosening helps prevent carrot rot. Another pest is the mole. To combat this bully, stores offer a number of means. On proper care Growing carrots in open ground will take a lot of effort and time, however, the luxurious harvest is worth it.

Carrot along with potatoes and onions, it is one of the main vegetables, so all gardeners find a place for it in their plots. Proper growing of carrots, is the key to a rich harvest.

Even on small areas you can get a high-quality and productive harvest. And if you combine the implementation of the basic rules of agricultural technology with advice experienced gardeners, then you can achieve great results in growing carrots, while also saving your labor costs and precious time that can be spent on relaxation.

Harvest carrots on high warm beds

Method of growing carrots, which will allow you to get a carrot harvest in a small area: 2.4 m2, which will last until the next season.

The determining factor in this method is the presence of a warm, high bed, which guarantees optimal conditions for carrot growth. Namely, it is a deep, loose, fertile layer.

Without such a bed, to achieve such a layer on our su clay soils ah, almost impossible.

The second main condition for obtaining a good harvest is the choice of seeds and their correct landing. It is better to purchase seeds from trusted manufacturers and better coated (that is, covered with a nutritious coating). Such seeds allow us to follow the exact pattern, maintaining the required distances, which in turn makes it possible to perform the most unpleasant technological technique - thinning out the sprouted carrots.

Any thinning means injury to neighboring plants and attracts pests to the garden bed, especially carrot flies. And weeding itself is a rather tedious and time-consuming task.

So, we’ve decided on the seeds, let’s start sowing. It is done as follows: pour a 5 cm layer of old sifted sawdust onto a prepared, leveled bed, make grooves in them along the bed with a depth to the ground and a distance of 20 cm from each other, and 10 cm from the edge of the bed.

Next, we spill these grooves with warm water; for disinfection, you can add potassium permanganate to the water until it turns pink. Then, without being lazy and painstakingly laying them out into grooves, one seed at a time every 3-4 cm. After laying them out, sprinkle them with sawdust and pour warm water over them again, but from a watering can with a sprayer.

All the main labor-intensive work has been completed, we are waiting for the shoots, which usually appear in 5-10 days depending on the temperature. During this time, sawdust does not allow weeds to germinate, so carrot shoots are easily visible. But 5-6 days after germination, you will still have to weed the bed, although this is loudly said, or rather, it would be more accurate to say, to remove the weeds that rarely break through.

During the summer, it is enough to weed the bed twice in the same way, until the tops of the carrots themselves close. Sawdust also made it possible to reduce the volume of irrigation per unit area and prevent rain from clogging or eroding the soil. As you understand, loosening with this approach is completely eliminated.

Of course, there can be no talk about any fertilizers, for example, such as nitrophoska and even Agricola Vegeta and Effecton-O, related to organic fertilizers. After all, the bed itself presupposes the presence required quantities nutrients for the entire period of carrot growth.

High yield of carrots without much hassle

I want to give carrot advice. After all, it’s not always possible to grow good carrots. This is a troublesome task, especially weeding, thinning, and loosening.

All of us, residents of the middle zone, sow carrots in the first half of May. Here's what I recommend: two weeks before sowing, wrap the carrot seeds in an old rag, soak them and dig them onto the bayonet of a shovel somewhere in the garden bed. Trample the ground and place a peg with a label. As the soil ripens, the seeds will become heavier, swell, and even sag a little.

And when the time comes for sowing, we do this: carefully, slowly, dig up the bed, scatter it over the entire surface ( stove ash, approximately 1 cup per 1 m 2 ) . We harrow carefully with a rake to break up clods of earth. Then we make markings along the bed, pulling the string. We make the distance between the rows 40 cm. We tread a groove along the lace (we go foot to foot) to create a dense bottom the width of the foot. We thoroughly moisten the soil in the groove by watering from a watering can.

When the water is absorbed, we begin to lay out the seeds by removing them from the hole. Once swollen, they will be clearly visible on a smooth bottom. The distance between the seeds is 5-6 cm, so as not to thin out later. Then we rake the soil from the sides of the groove and fill in the seeds, lightly pat down the row, do not water, so as not to form a crust that interferes with air access to the crops. Shoots will appear in a week. Now we need to water the plants and loosen the rows to destroy the weeds. The carrots will grow great!

Sow your favorite varieties using labor-saving technology. Excellent variety"Nanskaya" or its hybrids. The result is always good. Use the same “carrot method” for sowing parsley, beets, chives, and flower annuals. The main thing is not to forget to dig in the seeds in time, about 12-14 days before sowing, then you won’t have to bother with the seedlings and there will be less work to do in the spring.

Good neighbors. Carrots and onions in one bed

Experienced summer residents claim that onions and carrots get along well in the same bed, since their roots are located at different levels - carrots are deep, and onions are superficial, so they do not interfere with each other. But you need to ensure that the greenery of the carrots does not shade the onions. There are no problems with growing, and the harvest and taste of vegetables will certainly please you. If you want to test this claim, select a garden bed and try growing onions and carrots in it.

For planting, the bed must be made 1.2 meters wide and in the spring it should be filled with fertilizer. For these purposes you can use (chicken manure (3-4 buckets) or compost (7-8 buckets)) . It is good to add 250 g of double superphosphate to the organic matter.

You need to plant onions and carrots at the same time. Planting material must first be prepared.

To do this, stick the carrot seeds with starch paste onto thin paper cut into the width of the bed (1.2 m). Or use ready-made seed strips purchased from specialty stores. You can spread the pelleted seeds by hand.

The distance between the seeds should be approximately 2-3 cm.

Before planting, onions need to be soaked for 2-3 hours in a humate solution.

Do not add anything to the beds where carrots will grow. And in the places where onions are planted, sprinkle the furrow with ash mixed with mineral fertilizer in the proportion of 1 teaspoon of fertilizer per liter jar of ash.

When planting, a strip of paper with seeds should be carefully laid across the width of the bed to a depth of about 2 cm and sprinkled with soil. Plant onions in the next row. It is important not to press the bulbs into the soil, but to carefully place them on it. The distance between the rows should be from 10 to 15 cm. Cover the bed with plantings for 15 days with covering material.

The onion will grow first and should be fed. Onion feeding should be done when its feathers grow to 8-10 cm. To do this, prepare a solution: (For 10 liters of water, take 1 tbsp. spoon of ash, urea, double superphosphate extract and kerosene) . It is good to repeat fertilizing after 10-12 days.

Following the onions, carrots begin to grow intensively: the root crops increase in size, acquiring a good taste. In mid-August, the onion harvest can be harvested. And then expect a rich harvest of delicious carrots.

We are preparing a bed for carrots. Fertilizer application

When growing carrots, bed preparation is of great importance to obtain a rich harvest.

When growing carrots, you must remember that this crop is demanding on the composition of the soil. Good carrot yields can be obtained on light and medium loamy soils, or on cultivated peat lands with pH = 7.0 (neutral), free from weeds, and well drained.

Fresh manure is not added to the soil for carrots..

Carrots grow well in lands where last year predecessors grew - cabbage, green and legume crops, potatoes, tomatoes.

It is better to dig up the carrot bed in the fall to the depth of a bayonet shovel and leave it until spring. There is no need to break the lumps. This way it will freeze better and in the spring there will be no such lumps; the frozen moisture will break them into small particles.

If you have acidic soil, then before digging add it to each square meter. m beds, one glass of dolomite flour, fluff lime or chalk.

Bed for planting carrots Prepare 2-3 days before sowing.

Depending on the composition and fertility of the soil, organic and mineral fertilizers are applied in the spring.

For every sq. m beds at peat soils add (5 kg coarse grain river sand, manure humus 3-5 kg, one bucket of turf soil (clayey or loamy)).

Mineral fertilizers are also added: (one teaspoon of sodium nitrate or urea (carbamide), one tablespoon of powdered superphosphate and potassium chloride or potassium sulfate).

Then, after adding all these components, the bed is dug into

depth 20-25 cm (because the main varieties of carrots have long roots). The bed is well developed, the surface is leveled and compacted. After which the ridge is watered with the following solution: (dilute one teaspoon (at the level) of copper sulfate and one glass of mushy mullein in a bucket of warm water) , stir well and water at the rate of two liters per square meter. m beds. Then, to avoid moisture evaporation and to preserve heat, the bed is covered with plastic film.

On clay and podzolic soils (for every sq. m of bed, add 1-2 buckets of peat and coarse sand, one bucket of humus, half a bucket (3-5 kg) of fine (processed) sawdust(better not fresh, rotten)).

Mineral fertilizers for carrots: (add crushed superphosphate - one tablespoon and nitrophoska - two tablespoons) . In the spring you need to liming with chalk or dolomite flour, if you didn’t do it in the fall (which is preferable): two to three tablespoons for each square meter. m.

For light loamy soils (they consist of clay and sand) - produce fertilizer in the same way as clay soils, but do not add sand.

On sandy soils add two buckets of peat, turf soil and one bucket of processed sawdust and humus. Mineral fertilizers are applied the same as for clay soils. If granular fertilizers are used, there is no need to grind them into powder.

On chernozem fertile soils add half a bucket of small old or fresh processed sawdust and a bucket of sand.

Mineral fertilizers: (add two tablespoons of superphosphate, crushed into powder To).

Humus manure can be replaced with compost, but it should not contain weed seeds.

3-4 days before adding sawdust to the soil, they need to be processed. This is done in this way: 5 buckets of fresh sawdust are poured onto a piece of film laid out on the ground. Bred in a bucket hot water five tablespoons of nitrogen fertilizer (ammonium sulfate or urea) are poured into a watering can and the sawdust is slowly poured with this solution. The higher the temperature of the solution (40-50°C), the faster the sawdust will be ready for use in the garden bed.

Fresh sawdust, not processed in this way, can be added to the beds only in the fall. If you add fresh sawdust in the spring, the leaves of the carrot seedlings will have a pale color due to a lack of nitrogen (sawdust takes nitrogen from the soil when rotting).

When planting carrots on newly developed lands (virgin lands), it is necessary to carefully select all rhizomes when digging, especially wheatgrass, as well as wireworm and May beetle larvae.

Carrots, like all vegetables, are a light-loving crop, so in the shade the root crops grow very short (up to 3-5 cm), and the yield is reduced by two to three times. Excessive moisture in the soil contributes to diseases of carrot roots, so in places where groundwater are close, the beds should be made at least 30-35 cm high.

On poorly cultivated and dense soils, root crops grow in an ugly shape, branch out, and the quality of root crops and yield decrease.

Carrot planting dates

The timing of sowing is decisive for the carrot harvest.

Since carrot seeds germinate slowly, they require good soil moisture and should be sown as early as possible, while there is sufficient spring moisture in the ground. If you are late with sowing, the seeds will fall into dry soil and as a result, rare, weak shoots, and often the seeds do not germinate at all and you have to re-sow the bed.

The most optimal time for sowing carrot seeds is: in the central and middle lane: early varieties - from April 20 to 25; mid-season - from April 25 to May 5.

In the southern regions, sowing is carried out in two periods: to obtain products in the summer, spring - March 10-20, and for obtaining testes (uterine roots) and winter consumption for food, summer sowing - June 10-15.

You can sow carrots before winter, on frozen soil, in November - December. Sowing is done with dry seeds so that they cannot germinate until spring, otherwise the seedlings will freeze. Such carrots, sown in winter, grow much earlier, but they are consumed mainly in the summer, because... not suitable for storage.

So having prepared soil for growing carrots, You will get a rich harvest.

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Plant carrot (lat. Daucus) belongs to the genus of plants of the Umbrella family. The name "carrot" comes from the Proto-Slavic language. In nature, this plant is widespread in Africa, New Zealand, Australia, America and the Mediterranean. IN agriculture carrot vegetable represented by carrots, or cultivated carrot (Daucus sativus), which is divided into fodder and table varieties. Carrots have been cultivated for about four thousand years, and during this time many varieties of the plant have been developed. It is believed that the birthplace of carrots is Afghanistan, since most of the species of this vegetable still grow there. At first, carrots were grown not as an edible root vegetable, but for their seeds and aromatic leaves. The plant came to Europe in the 10th-13th centuries AD; mentions of it can be found in Domostroy - this means that in the 16th century it was already grown in Rus'.

Planting and caring for carrots

Landing: sowing seeds of mid-season and late varieties in the soil, depending on its composition, from late April to late May. Early varieties are sown before winter, at the end of October or early November.
Lighting: bright light all day long.
The soil: loose and well fertilized.
Predecessors: good ones are potatoes, zucchini, cucumbers, onions, garlic, tomatoes, cabbage. Undesirables: parsley, fennel, dill, parsnips, cumin and carrots.
Watering: once a week. After sowing, water consumption is 3 liters per m² of plot, after the second thinning – 10 liters per m², from the beginning of root crop growth – 20 liters per m², one and a half to two months before harvesting, the plot is watered once every one and a half weeks, spending no more than 10 liters per m², and 2-3 weeks before harvesting, watering is stopped.
Feeding: liquid fertilizers twice a season: a month after germination and two months after the first feeding.
Reproduction: seed.
Pests: slugs, wireworms, carrot flies, fall armyworm caterpillars.
Diseases: septoria, phomosis, bacteriosis, gray, white, black and red rot.

Carrot plant - description

Carrots – annual, biennial or perennial herbaceous plant, which in the first year of growth forms only a rosette of pinnately dissected leaves and a root crop, and in the second - seeds. The root crop of carrots is truncated-conical, spindle-shaped or cylindrical, fleshy, weighs from 30 to 500 g or more. The carrot inflorescence is a complex, 10-15-rayed umbel with small white, yellowish or reddish flowers and a red flower in the center.

Fetus– small elliptical dvosemyanka up to 4 cm long. Root vegetables contain carotenes, lycopene, B vitamins, flavonoids, anthocyanidins, sugars, ascorbic and pantothenic acids and other substances necessary for the human body.

Planting carrots in open ground

When to plant carrots in the ground

Carrot seeds germinate at a soil temperature of 4-6 ºC, so they can be sown as soon as the soil warms up to this temperature - usually by the end of April. Late and mid-season carrot varieties can be sown after the twentieth of April until the first week of May inclusive. On medium soils, you can sow carrots in the second week of May, and on light soils - until the very end of the month.

Seeds in the soil are not afraid of frost down to -4 ºC. It is good to sow carrots before heavy rains. Try not to be late with sowing, otherwise the seeds will take a very long time to germinate.

Soil for carrots

The place for carrots should be well lit by the sun and be level, but a slight slope of the area is acceptable. Beds cannot be used for growing carrots, on which caraway seeds, fennel, parsley, parsnips, dill, beans and carrots grew last year, since these vegetables quickly absorb the micro- and macroelements they need from the ground, depleting the soil, and the carrot harvest will most likely be meager. To be able to plant carrots after such predecessors, at least three years must pass. But after potatoes, cucumbers, zucchini, cabbage, tomatoes, garlic or onions, carrots grow well.

Once the area is outlined, you need to prepare the soil for carrots: under spring planting it is dug up in advance, in the fall, so that it remains stable until spring. Digging is done to a depth of one and a half spade bayonets, because if the root crop grows well and rests on a dense, undug layer of soil, it will not break through it, but will change direction, and the carrot will turn out crooked. It is very difficult to dig up such carrots.

Before planting carrots, you need to add fertilizer to the soil. They are laid out around the site before digging at the following rate: 25-30 g of superphosphate, 15 g of potassium fertilizers, 15-20 g of nitrogen fertilizers and 2-3 kg of humus per 1 m². Then the soil is dug up and left until spring. In the spring you will only need to level the area with a rake.

How to plant carrots in open ground

Growing carrots from seeds begins with preparing the seed. Before planting carrots, it is necessary to subject the seeds to a treatment that increases their germination. There are four ways to pre-sow seeds:

they are soaked for 24 hours in warm water (30 ºC), changing it at least six times during this time. Instead of water, you can prepare a nutrient solution at the same temperature by stirring a tablespoon of ash in a liter of warm water. After the procedure, rinse the seeds with clean water, wrap them in cloth and place them in the refrigerator for several days;
the seeds are placed in a fabric bag and immersed in water at a temperature of 50 ºC for 20 minutes, after which they are cooled in cold water for 2-3 minutes;
seeds placed in a fabric bag are buried in the ground for 10 days to the depth of a spade bayonet;
bubble the seeds; if you have a bubbler, keep them for 18-20 hours in an oxygen-saturated solution of Epin or Silk.

Seeds treated by any of these methods are ready for sowing. Planting carrots in the ground is carried out on light soils to a depth of 2-3 cm, heavy soils require a shallower planting depth - 1.5-2 cm. The distance between rows is approximately 20 cm. Seeds are sown at a distance of 3-4 cm from each other.

In order to maintain such a distance, you can cut narrow strips of toilet paper in advance, apply drops of starch or flour paste on it at intervals of 3-4 cm, and place carrot seeds in these drops. When the paste dries, the tape is bent in half along its entire length and then rolled into a roll. When it’s time to sow, the tape is unrolled and laid in a well-moistened furrow. After planting the seeds in the soil, the area is mulched with a layer 3 cm thick so that a crust does not form on the soil surface, which impedes the germination of seedlings.

There is another way to sow carrots: paper napkins or toilet paper cut into small squares, in each of which a carrot seed or two and a granule of complex mineral fertilizer are placed on a drop of paste, the pieces of paper are rolled into balls, allowed to dry and stored until sowing. These balls are placed in the furrow at the required interval of 3-4 cm.

Planting carrots before winter

Planting winter carrots allows you to get a harvest two weeks earlier than with spring sowing, but in the fall early varieties are sown, which are not stored for a long time. This should be done at the end of October or early November, and the beds for carrots are prepared three weeks before sowing. After planting the seeds in the ground, the crop is mulched with a layer of peat 3 cm thick. In the spring, the area is covered with film and kept there until the seedlings hatch. Planting carrots in the ground in the fall is carried out only in light soils.

Caring for carrots

How to grow carrots

Growing carrots in open ground involves thinning the seedlings if their growth is too thick, frequent loosening and clearing the area of weed, which can cause some diseases, regular watering of carrots. The first thinning of seedlings is carried out after they have developed their first two true leaves - as a result of thinning, the distance between the seedlings should become 2-3 cm. When the second pair of leaves appears, the seedlings are broken through a second time, doubling the distance between them.

If you used paper tape or balls when planting, then you will not have to thin out the seedlings. Weeding of the site is carried out at the same time as thinning, and it is better to do this after watering the site, when the soil is moist.

Watering carrots

If you want to grow large, juicy, sweet root vegetables, you need to know how to water carrots. Insufficient watering is the reason for the lethargy of the fruits and the appearance of a bitter taste. Watering carrots is the most important point in caring for the plant throughout all stages of development. The depth of moisture in the area must correspond to the size of the root crops, that is, the soil must be saturated with water during watering to a depth of at least 30 cm.

Lack of hydration provokes the appearance of lateral roots on root crops, growing in search of a source of moisture, which affects not only appearance carrots, but also its taste - the pulp becomes coarse and tough. Excessive moisture causes cracking of root crops, they become covered with small shoots, and the growth of tops increases.

Typically, carrots are watered once a week in approximately the following volume:

the first time after sowing, the area is watered at the rate of 3 liters per 1 m²;
after the second thinning of the seedlings, the amount of water per unit area is increased to 10 l;
when the growth of root crops begins, and this happens after the growth of leaves, the water consumption should be within 20 liters per m²;
one and a half to two months before harvesting carrots, they switch to watering once every one and a half to two weeks with about 10 liters of water per unit area, and two to three weeks before harvesting, they stop watering altogether.

Feeding carrots

During the growing season, carrots are fertilized twice - the first time a month after germination, the second time two months later. How to fertilize carrots? Fertilizers are applied in liquid form and in approximately the following composition: two glasses of wood ash, a tablespoon of nitrophoska, 20 g of potassium nitrate and 15 g of superphosphate and urea per bucket of water. Fertilizers are applied after preliminary watering of carrots.

Carrot processing

What causes carrots and how to treat carrots against diseases and pests, you will read in the next section.

Pests and diseases of carrots

Carrot diseases

Carrots are affected by diseases and pests, and in order to avoid massive damage to root crops, you need to know how to treat carrots in each specific case. The worst diseases for carrots are phomosis, bacteriosis, septoria, gray, white, red and black rot.

Bacteriosis It is spread by seeds and contaminated plant debris, so remove carrot tops from the garden bed after harvesting, and treat the seeds with hot (52 ºC) water before sowing.

White, like gray rot, Almost all vegetables are affected; these fungal diseases most often appear during storage. To avoid infection, lime the acidic soil, do not overuse nitrogen fertilizers, remove weeds from the area, and dust the root crops with chalk before storing them. It is also important to observe the storage conditions of root vegetables. and ensure good ventilation in the warehouse.

Red rot, or felt disease manifests itself as brown or purple spots on root crops, then the spots disappear, and black sclerotia of the fungus appear in their place. This disease affects not only carrots, but also rutabaga, turnips, parsley, beets and other root vegetables. The disease is provoked by adding manure to the soil as fertilizer. Infected felt disease Root vegetables should be stored separately from the rest of the carrots.

Black rot looks like coal-black rotten areas on the root crop, it is most dangerous for carrot seeds. Diseased plants are immediately removed. A preventive measure against black rot is pre-sowing treatment of carrot seeds with a half-percent Tigam solution.

Septoria manifests itself as chlorotic small spots on carrot leaves, which over time become brown, surrounded by a red rim. In conditions high humidity Airborne disease can spread very quickly. At the first signs of the disease, the area is treated several times at intervals of 10 days with one percent Bordeaux mixture, and heavily affected plants must be removed and destroyed from the area, as well as plant debris after harvesting. As a preventive measure, treating seeds before sowing with hot water followed by sudden cooling gives good results. And do not forget to add phosphorus-potassium fertilizers to the soil for digging when preparing the site.

Fomoz affects the stems of the testes and inflorescences of carrots, then brown spots form on the upper part of the root crop, gradually deepening and affecting the entire root crop. The disease develops faster on light soils. As a preventative measure, treat the seeds before sowing with a half-percent Tigam solution, and immediately remove disease-affected specimens.

Carrot pests

Among the pests that pose a danger to carrots are the carrot fly, the fall armyworm, wireworms and slugs. To get rid of slugs, you can collect them manually, but if the invasion is widespread, jars of beer are dug into the soil, the smell of which attracts mollusks, or pieces of pumpkin or watermelon are laid out around the area, which will gather a decent company of slugs by morning. To scare gastropods away from carrots, you can scatter dusty superphosphate, ash or pine needles over the area.

wireworms, or dark click beetle larvae, in addition to carrots, they affect cabbage, cucumbers, tomatoes, celery, potatoes and strawberries. The bug itself is up to 1 cm long, black-brown in color with reddish elytra, its female is capable of laying up to two hundred eggs in one clutch, the yellow-brown cylindrical larvae of which, up to 4 cm long, develop within 3-5 years. To get rid of pests, small holes are dug in the area, half-rotted grass, pieces of raw potatoes or any root vegetable are placed in them, the hole is sprinkled with earth and the place is marked with a peg. After a few days, the hole is dug up and the larvae gathered there are destroyed.

Fall armyworm caterpillars They damage the above-ground parts of carrots and also gnaw through roots and stems. In addition to carrots, kohlrabi, tomatoes, beets, parsley, cucumbers, onions and potatoes become victims of caterpillars. Destroy the caterpillars with one of the following insecticides in accordance with the instructions: Ambush, Cyanox, Anometrine, Revikurt, Etaphos. You can prevent carrot flies from appearing in your area by planting onions between the rows of carrots.

Harvesting and storing carrots

Harvesting carrots is carried out in several stages. First, you start pulling it up in the summer for food, and the root vegetables remaining in the ground receive more nutrition and gain mass more intensively. Then the early varieties of carrots are harvested, which ripen in July. In August, it is the turn to harvest mid-season carrots, and late varieties, intended for long-term storage, are dug up from mid to late September.

When to dig up carrots? Choose a warm and dry day for this and get started. From light soil, root crops are pulled out by the tops, and from dense soil, carrots have to be dug out with a shovel.

After carrots are removed from the ground, they are sorted, setting aside damaged roots for processing. For carrots suitable for storage, the leaves are cut off right down to the head, the roots are placed under a shed to dry for several days and then stored.

We devoted a section to methods of storing carrots in a special article, which describes in detail how to store carrots, beets and other vegetables in the winter. It is best to store carrots in a basement or cellar in wooden or plastic boxes, sprinkling the root crops with sand so that they do not come into contact with each other. You can use moss instead of sand. You can sprinkle the carrots with crushed chalk and onion skins– chalk and onion peels counteract the development of putrefactive processes.

There is another way to store carrots - glazing with clay. The clay must be diluted with water until it becomes thick with sour cream, then each root vegetable is dipped into this mash, placed on a wire rack to dry, and then carefully lowered into the cellar. If you store clay-coated carrots at a temperature of about 0 ºC in a dry cellar, they will remain juicy and fresh until spring.

Types and varieties of carrots

Contrary to what most people think about carrots, they are not only red- orange color and not always cone-shaped. Carrots acquired an orange color only in the 17th century; before that, in the Roman Empire, for example, white carrots grew in Ancient Egypt purple, and in some countries Western Europe even black. Early paintings by Dutch artists depict purple and yellow root vegetables.

The very first orange carrot was very pale, since it contained 3-4 times less carotene than modern varieties of carrots. More recently, in 2002, breeders revived the variety purple carrots, and it's already on sale. Purple pigments anthocyanidins, which, in addition to purple varieties of carrots, contain plants such as purple basil, beets and red cabbage, improve brain and cardiovascular function by clearing the blood of cholesterol and fats. Breeders are also working on the shape and size of root crops, which today are represented by varieties of conical, almost round, pointed, spindle-shaped or with a rounded end.

A huge number of carrot varieties are divided into varieties, among which the main ones are:

Parisian Carotel– very early, tender, sweet and round, like a radish, carrots with a diameter of up to 4 cm. Gives good yields even on poorly cultivated or clay soil;
Amsterdam– cylindrical root vegetables with a diameter of 2-2.5 cm, a length of 15-17 cm, with a rounded end, juicy, sweet, tender, with a small core. The only drawback is their fragility - if carelessly harvested, the root vegetables easily break. This is a variety series of early carrots not intended for storage;
Nantes– cylindrical root vegetables with a diameter of 3-4 cm, up to 22 cm long, with a rounded tip, with sweet and juicy pulp. Suitable for both eating in the summer and for storage;
Berlicum-Nantes- also cylindrical root vegetables, but with a sharp tip, and also larger in size than Nantes. The keeping quality of this carrot is excellent, but it is not as tasty as the carrots of the varieties described above;
Emperor– conical-shaped root vegetables up to 25 cm long with a sharp tip. The varieties of this series vary greatly in taste (they can be either very sweet or not very sweet), in the degree of keeping quality and in the fragility of root crops, some of which break if handled carelessly;
Flakke– the root crops of the varieties in this series are the most powerful and long, reaching 30 cm. The weight of one root crop can be 500 g or more. The growing season for carrots of this variety series is very long, it is well stored, but, unfortunately, does not have the same high taste qualities that are characteristic of carrots of the Nantes and Amsterdam variety series.

Carrot varieties for open ground are also divided depending on the purpose of cultivation. If you are a lover of exotics, then you will like these varieties:

F1 Purple Elixir- root vegetables with a deep purple surface with a purple tint, but inside they are the usual orange color for carrots. The length of the root vegetable is about 20 cm. Carrots of this variety are used for pickling and preparing salads;
Russian size– the exoticism of this variety (Emperor series variety) lies precisely in its size. Carrots in light soils reach 30 cm in length and sometimes weigh about a kilogram. Despite the fact that these sizes are more suitable for fodder carrots, the pulp of the root vegetables of this variety is sweet and juicy, the core is small, and the color is bright orange;
Polar Cranberry- a variety of the Parisian Karotel variety type, reminiscent of almost round shape root vegetables known as berries and containing a high amount of dry matter and sugars. Very convenient for canning and storage;
Minicore– an early variety of the Amsterdam series, which is a juicy miniature cylindrical root crop 13-15 cm long with a delicate taste. Carrots of this variety are very convenient for whole-fruit canning.

For those gardeners who are more interested not in appearance, but in the taste of the product and the amount of nutrients in it, the following varieties are more suitable:

Healthmaster – new variety Flakke variety, which contains at least a third more beta-carotene than any other variety. The surface of the root crop of this variety is smooth, crimson-red, the core is even more saturated in color, the average length is about 22 cm;
Sugar Gourmet– a hybrid of the Emperor variety, up to 25 cm long, dark orange in color with a small core and a smooth surface;
Praline– a variety of the Nantes series with a high content of carotene, almost without a core, red-orange color, about 20 cm long. The taste of this carrot is beyond praise - very sweet, tender and juicy;
Losinoostrovskaya 13– a mid-season variety 15-18 cm long, characterized by good keeping quality.

If you are a pragmatic person and you don’t have time to do gardening experiments, we offer you varieties that are disease-resistant, productive and well-stored in winter:

Samson– mid-season variety high yield Nantes variety with bright orange cylindrical root vegetables with juicy, sweet, crispy pulp;
Mo– a late-ripening and high-yielding variety of the Emperor variety series with conical juicy bright orange root crops up to 20 cm long, perfectly stored in winter;
Flakke– a mid-season variety of spindle-shaped form with barely noticeable eyes, capable of producing high yields even in heavy soils. Root crops reach a length of 30 cm;
Forto– a mid-early variety of the Nantskaya series with smooth cylindrical fruits of excellent taste, 18-20 cm long. Gives consistently high yields and is perfectly stored.

According to the timing of ripening, carrots are divided into early, or early ripening, which takes 85-100 days to fully ripen, mid-ripening, ripening within 105-120 days, and late ripening, which takes about 125 days to reach full maturity. Of the early carrot varieties, the varieties Alenka, Belgien White, Dragon, Zabava, Bangor, Kinby, Kolorit, Laguna and Touchon have proven themselves well; from the mid-season varieties - Vitaminnaya, Altair, Viking, Callisto, Canada, Leander, Olympian and Chantenay Royale; from the late - Queen of Autumn, Vita Longa, Yellowstone, Selecta, Perfection, Totem, Thinga, Olympus, Skarla.

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