Carrots
Tomsk
Posts: 204
I want to try growing carrots. Last year I grew tomatoes in a planter, which was my first attempt at growing fruit/veg so this year I thought I'd try something else.
The planter is 18" deep and gets very reasonable sun in the summer months.
I was looking at some carrot seeds in Lidl and they say to plant 4" apart in rows one foot apart, which means I could potentially fit 20 carrots in my planter. That's a much lower yield than tomatoes, so how long do they take to grow and am I likely to grow more than one crop in a year?
I also read that you should grow onions with tomatoes to stop bugs eating them. Does this really work, and should I grow an equal number, because that means I end up with just 10 carrots (albeit with 10 onions as well).
I do use a lot of carrots in soups and meals, so maybe I'm wasting my time growing them in a planter that's 18" deep, 18" wide and 1 metre long, and should stick to tomatoes?
Posts
Its really important to keep the carrot fly away, apparently they only fly 18in high so anything above that should be safe, i reckon they can do a bit better than that, so i put my planter quite high and tightly secure fleece over it ....just to be sure!
Keep them well watered or they can be a bit woody, but wow, its all totally worth it, just the smell of them is amazing!
Don't plant them in tomato compost- they will fork. Use a sandy soil mix that drains freely . If you have any plastic piping, shove them into the sandy mix and plant your carrot seeds inside the top of the pipes -the carrots will then grow straight down and not bend. Carrot fly is a problem - you can buy the correct mesh off marshalls-seeds - or, if you have fine mesh , buy a bunch of bamboo 3' high bamboo canes and wrap the mesh around them every 1' , then wrap the whole lot around the planter and tie in with garden wire round the rim.
When you are thinning out, (after 2-3 weeks of planting), dispose of all thinnings (in a salad?), or the carrot fly will detect the smell .
I always grow my carrots in a container - 45 cm square. This will give you 3 good rows. Sow as thinly as you can as this means less thinning later. I use ordinary potting compost (nothing fancy) but mix it half and half with sharp sand (ordinary stuff from B&Q). Carrots never 'fork' and taste great. Water daily in Summer and use fresh compost/sand every year. They don't need feeding, in fact one old chap I know grows his in a dustbin full of sand only. He wins prizes at shows most years. finally try carrot varieties like Sweet Candle or Flyaway which resist that pesky little fly.
You could try some companion planting. I had success last year by planting my carrots between rows of onions. the little b.....s don't like the onions.
Ive tried companion planting and using the varieties that the flies arent supposed to like, there was less damage, but they still got at em! Grrrrr
I've grown carrots successfully for the last couple of years, first year I was late getting ready so they were out of phase with carrot fly, last year I made a fence with fleece which seemed to work, and then later in the season I wanted more so I put a big compost bag on top of the coal bunker, cut the side out to make a big growbag and sowed carrots directly in it using the height of the coal bunker instead of fleece. All the carrots came out well, except a couple I let run to seed by mistake which were a bit woody. I like baby carrots and I'm bad at sowing thinly which means I get plenty of babies when I thin them.
I think your planter will work well - don't bother with rows, broadcast the seed in the planter, it means you have to think in all directions when thinning but it's a much better way to use a small space.
Thanks for the replies. Today I bought a packet of 'Jeanette' seeds, on the basis that the description on the back said they're especially sweet whereas the various other varieties in Lidl just say they're either early/late ripening or that they keep well rather than mentioning the flavour. These were also the most expensive, at £1.49 rather than £29p, so I'm hoping they'll turn out OK.
I also got a packet of 'Stuttgarter Riesen' onions for 29p, which I intend to plant with them.
The carrot packet seem to suggest they grow in 80-90 days, whereas the onions just have a germination time (15-20 days) and say to harvest them when the leaves die. Is there an optimal time to pick carrots to get them big and full of flavour? If they really will grow in three months, I should be able to grow two crops this year before the summer ends.
Also, I take it slugs and snails are a problem for carrot and onion growing?
I used "seed tape" in a raised bed (oblong, dug out to at least a foot and refilled with fresh peaty compost - used old planks as sides / ends)
The seeds are already spaced out in a strip of tissue - did very well actually so may go with this again this time
Good tip about the sandy soil though as some had forked - still tasted great though!
How come you can plant them 4" next to each other one way but they need to be in 12" rows the other way? Is this a suggestion they print on the packet for simpletons like me, or could I average the distance to a fixed 6" grid, and maybe plant hexagonally, etc?
I have the planter full of soft, fluffy soil (although it gets harder over time as it settles) and can't afford to change it or mix it with sand, especially if I'm going to plant other things in it next year, so I'll just have to suffer any forking. Given that this is my second year of planting things, I don't mind it all being a learning experience. My tomatoes did taste nice last year (although the early ones were rather acidic) so I expect these carrots to beat the supermarket ones.