How to grow carrots: the secrets of a good harvest

Carrots do not require special care, but the rules of growing must be carried out. It is a drought-resistant culture, well tolerates frosts and prolonged cold snap. How to grow carrots? Secrets, like the rest of the vegetables, lie in the proper agrotechnics. It requires more care than other cultures. Let's consider in detail how to grow carrots on a summer residence or a garden site the hands.

Soil preparation

It is required to choose a bright place before growing carrots. The secrets are that when there is a lack of sunlight, because of the falling shadow or the uneven surface of the garden bed, the root crops lose in sugariness and in mass.

Before you grow a good crop of carrots, you must choose a light and even soil. It should be sandy loam, light loam, with good drainage. In dense loam the fruits grow small, when stored, they are quickly affected by rot. Carrots can not be planted on acidic soils. It requires a neutral or slightly acidic medium.

Before you grow a good carrot, you need to prepare the soil. The garden is prepared in the fall so that it will settle. It is made loose. To do this, add wood chips, humus, peat or sand. For liming, chalk, lime, dolomite, ashes are used. Manure for growing carrots should not be used, because not very beautiful and poorly stored roots are obtained. In poor soil it is necessary to make humus - per bucket per square meter. If the groundwater is close, the bed is made high.

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

Carrot beds should be constantly changed. Predecessors should be garlic, onions, cabbage, potatoes. How to grow a large carrot, if you have to grow the same culture in one place? Here, the introduction of wood ash twice a year in an amount of 0.2 kg / m ² , followed by digging.

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

How to prepare seeds for sowing

Germination capacity of carrot seeds is small - 55-75%. In this regard, the seeds should be taken fresh. In addition, carrots do not differ in uniform germination. After 2-3 weeks, the first shoots should appear. Seeds germinate for a long time because of the presence on their surface of essential oils that slow the penetration of moisture.

Before growing a good carrot, the seeds must be prepared for sowing. Let's consider some ways of their preliminary germination.

Soak

Seeds are poured into bags of cloth and keep the day in warm water. Water should be changed every four hours. From it, you can make a nutrient solution by adding wood ash (30 g / l). After the seeds must be washed.

The method will be more effective if additional hardening is performed. Seeds in wet pouches are placed for 2-5 days in the refrigerator.

Soaking with a nutrient solution

Use a weak solution of potassium permanganate with ½ tsp of fertilizer per liter of water or a mixture of nitrophosphate and boric acid (1/3 of a spoonful and 1/2 teaspoon per liter of water, respectively). Seeds are scattered on a folded several times gauze, as well as cover it from above and pour a solution for a day. The liquid level should be just above the fabric. Then they are washed with water and cleaned for three or four days in a refrigerator.

If the weather does not allow the seeds to be planted, they are left on the bottom shelf of the refrigerator, maintaining all the time moistened. In this case, you need to ensure that they do not sprout more than 0.5 cm.

Heat treatment

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

Bubbling

The bubbling accelerates the seed preparation process. At the bottom of the nonmetallic container with water, an air or oxygen supply hose with an emery stone filter at the end is fed. A grid with seeds is placed on top.

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

Injecting seeds into the soil

Dry seeds are put in bags of cloth and buried in the ground with a shovel to the depth of one bayonet, where they must be at least 10-12 days. Then they get out and sow in the garden. After such treatment, shoots should appear in about five days.

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

How to grow carrots. Secrets of sowing and caring

Before planting, seeds are selected and purchased that are most suitable for a certain region. They can also be obtained independently. Before growing carrot seeds, you should find a good and large root, and then plant it in the spring. By the autumn it will ripen.

Carrots grow about three months. In order to harvest in September, the planting should be made no later than May. Terms of sowing take the period from the end of April to the first decade of June. Optimum is considered landing till May, 5th.

Under winter, carrots are planted when the soil becomes cold enough. This can be a period from late October to early November. Terms of sowing and harvesting depend on the variety and region. Northern varieties in the south should not be planted, as they will grow slowly. If you cultivate southern varieties in the middle belt, they give an abundant tops, and root crops do not develop. Some varieties bred abroad are poorly stored.

Harvesting should be done on time, otherwise the useful properties and rooting capacity of root crops can deteriorate.

Small carrot seeds should be evenly expanded in the groove. Therefore, they are mixed with sand or peat and sown in the garden.

How to grow carrots correctly, so that neighboring rows do not interfere with it? To ensure sufficient light, beds are best done narrow - no more than four rows of carrots. On the edge of the rim are made to prevent water from draining. The distance between the rows should be 15 cm, and for the late varieties - 20 cm. The beds are watered and sprinkled with ashes. Seeds are placed in grooves at a distance of about 2.5 cm.

At spring-summer plantings, the swollen seeds are planted shallowly - 3-4 cm. They should be sprinkled with very light soil, which is used as black earth mixed with peat, sand or humus. Then, above the bed, an air gap is made from the film 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 seeding is done.

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

Thinning plants

How to grow a good crop of carrots, if it has perfectly risen? To do this, you need to do a thorough thinning of the shoots after the appearance of the third sheet. All this is not as simple as it seems at first glance. To plants are well removed, beds should be watered, and the soil carefully loosen. In addition, the operation should be performed in the daytime so as not to attract a pest - a carrot fly flying in the evening.

Sprouts should be removed with tweezers, leaving a distance of at least 2 cm. Remove the smallest shoots. The plant is thrown away from the garden. Leave it near by in no case not to attract pests. A good deterrent is the onion arrows, which are ground and scattered on the bed. You can cover the crops with special material. Earth around the plants a little bit. After 20 days, thinning is repeated. In this case, a distance of 6 cm is left between the carrots.

Rowing is required to loosen and weed (at least once a week) so that sufficient oxygen is supplied to the roots. After thinning the aisle, mulch compost or soaked for several weeks with sawdust in 2-3% urea solution.

How to grow a large carrot? Here you need the right dosage of fertilizers. They can not be brought in at once in large quantities. Carrot beds begin to fertilize with mineral water when 5-6 sheets appear. The periodicity of feeding is 2-4 weeks. This culture especially does not like excess nitrogen.

In the process of growth, the upper part of the root leaves the ground and becomes green. It does not hurt, but the taste gets worse. How to grow sweet carrots so that it does not lose its flavor? When root crops appear from the ground, they are hilled, podgrebaya on them a land about 50 mm high.

Watering carrot beds

The poor germination of carrots is primarily due to the drying of the soil. Until it has risen, the top layer of the bed should be constantly wet. Sometimes the land should be watered several times a day. Particularly hard to germinate granulated seeds. Immediately after sowing, the bed is protected with a film so that the top layer does not dry out.

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

Coarse root crops are an indication that they lacked moisture. With its overabundance, the fruits grow small. Also, sharp changes from drying to excess moisture are harmful, leading to cracking of carrots and subsequent poor preservation.

Carrots are not afraid of cold weather, but at temperatures below 8 degrees, starch in the roots turns into sugar, the rooting of root crops is deteriorating. In the middle belt, the harvest is harvested at the end of September in dry weather.

The collected carrots are dried for 1.5-2 hours, and then cut off the tops. Harvest is sorted, even carrots are placed in a ventilated box in a dark and cool place. It can be a cellar or a cellar.

Conclusion

You will never manage to harvest a good harvest if you do not know how to grow carrots. The secrets of agricultural technology are the proper preparation of the soil, competent planting and care. As a result, in autumn you will get large and even roots.