Carrots, finally
I can't believe my eyes - I have tried growing carrots every year... and this is the first year that they have finally made it! This success was not without it's failures. I originally planted 3 rows of 3 different varieties: Napoli organic, Purple Haze, and Chantenay Red Cored Carrot. Only the Napoli (on the right in picture) produced a significant amount of carrots, but a few purple ones made it, quite to my surprise. They didn't do much at the start, and then I kind of forgot about them, until I went down to the garden the other day and ta-da! What you see in the picture is ALL of the purple ones that made it, but better than nothing! I have plenty more Napoli still in the ground to last the next few weeks. There is nothing like fresh carrots. What I did this year that was different, that may have led to success?
1) added peat moss to the garden - the earth has always been really really heavy, which carrot seeds do not generally like.
2) watered them - or rather, the fact that it rained almost every day seemed to help.
3) I planted radishes in the same row. I do think that this broke the soil for the carrot seeds - the rows (Napoli) where I had lots of radishes were the rows where carrots did the best. A terribly unscientific-ly derived conclusion, but I think I will continue to do this.
Next year:
1) I've heard that planting carrots into long hills is the way to go - my mom's neighbour does this, and has amazing carrots every year, so I think I will try this next year.
2) Also, add more sand! I didn't have any around this year, and just got lazy at planting time. Next year - add sand into the planting trough. Carrots like sand.
posted by The Sauce at
9:47 AM
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