With the onset of spring, gardeners have a lot of work to do, which is not at all surprising: you need to plow the land, prepare the beds, and deal with the seeds. In order to get a good harvest, you need to work hard, and the whole season. This is where the old Russian proverb comes to mind: "what you sow, so you reap."
What's an autumn harvest without carrots? Juicy, crispy, and most importantly, even and large fruits are the dream of any gardener. But not everyone can grow such carrots. Maybe it's not just the poorly selected seeds? Let's try to figure out when to sow carrots and how to care for them so that a capricious vegetable will please a rich harvest.
"Of course, you need to plant it in the spring," you will answer and you will not be entirely right. Although the timing of planting vegetables in a personal plot is approximately the same, this rule does not apply to a vegetable such as carrots. There are early-ripening, mid-ripening and late-ripening varieties.carrots. The first and second are grown for food in the summer, and the last is for storage for the winter. Their landing dates, of course, are different.
Early carrots are generally planted in autumn before winter, or at worst in April, as soon as the snow melts and the ground thaws a little. The orange vegetable is frost-resistant and easily tolerates temperatures as low as -3 degrees.
When sowing mid-ripening carrots, aspens will tell you: a folk sign says that it is time to plant a vegetable during the flowering of this tree.
Well, when to sow late carrots, the lunar calendar can tell. This usually happens in early June, although you can wait a little longer until the middle of the month. Then the vegetable will be able to lie perfectly in the cellar until spring.
So, when we figured out when to sow carrots, now we need to tell a little about choosing a place for a capricious vegetable.
If your backyard is in a lowland, then you should think about high bulk beds for carrots, because it does not tolerate excess moisture, although it loves frequent watering. Also, the place should be sunny, since root crops practically do not develop in the shade. Cucumbers, tomatoes, onions, zucchini, potatoes are considered good predecessors for carrots. That is, she prefers rich in mineral fertilizers, fertile soil. However, carrots do not tolerate fresh manure. It is best to apply fertilizer a year before planting the root crop. It is good if the soil contains sand, because carrots love loose and light earth.
Root seeds germinate very poorly, because they contain a large amount of essential oils. This makes it difficult for moisture to get into them. Therefore, before planting in the ground, the seeds must be prepared. First, they are soaked for several days, changing the water 2-3 times. It would be nice to harden the seeds by dipping them alternately in hot and cold water, but for this you need to observe a strict temperature regime, which is not very convenient in country conditions. There is another popular way: put the seeds in a linen bag and bury a week before planting to the depth of a spade bayonet. Before sowing, take out, slightly ventilate and plant at a distance of 1.5 cm from each other, making furrows of 10-15 cm.
We hope these simple tips will help you increase the yield of the orange root crop.
