Gadenin日本語Get the appDecide which sowing you are doing
Carrots are either sown in summer for an autumn and winter crop, or in spring for an early summer one. Different jobs fall at the same time of year for each, so decide which you are doing before you read the calendar. If you do both, use separate beds and keep separate records.
The difficulties sit in different places. A summer sowing has one obstacle, the heat and drought right after sowing, and after that the falling temperature and reducing pest pressure are on your side. A spring sowing has three: cold germination, bolting, and splitting in wet weather at the end.
| Sowing | Sow | Harvest | The difficult part |
|---|---|---|---|
| Summer, autumn and winter crop | Mid to late summer | Late autumn to late winter | The first fortnight after sowing |
| Spring, early summer crop | Late winter to mid spring | Early to midsummer | Cold germination, then wet weather |
If you only do one, do the summer sowing. The difficulty is concentrated in a single point, and once past it the season works in your favor.
The summer sowing, stage by stage
It runs from soil preparation through to lifting the last roots in late winter. The management in the first three weeks becomes the yield, so if you know you cannot water daily in a particular week, it is better to move the sowing than to sow anyway.
The advantage of this sowing is that harvest is spread out. From late autumn you lift what you need, and the rest keeps in the ground through winter. You are never left with everything lifted at once and nowhere to put it.
| Stage | Jobs | Watch out for |
|---|---|---|
| Before sowing | Prepare the soil, build the bed | Compost three weeks ahead, pick out stones |
| Sowing | Sow, water daily, first thinning | Above 95F it will not germinate. Shade and cover |
| Three to five weeks | Second thinning, feed, hoe | Caterpillars are at their worst now |
| Six to eight weeks | Final thinning, feed, earth up | Four to five inches apart, cover the shoulders |
| Twelve weeks | Earth up, pull a test root | Start lifting at about a two inch shoulder |
| Winter | Lift as needed, protect for storage | Where it freezes hard, cut the tops and cover |
| Late winter | Finish lifting, clear the bed | Lift everything before it bolts |
What to look at, stage by stage
You visit the same bed each time, but what you are checking changes. Early on it is soil moisture, then the undersides of the leaves, then the spacing, then the exposed shoulders and the thickness. Knowing what you are looking for makes a five minute visit useful.
- Early on, look at the surface The only thing that matters is whether the bed has gone pale and dry. For those ten days that is the entire job, and getting it wrong makes everything afterwards pointless.
- Then look under the leaves Check whether leaves have been reduced to stalks and whether there are eggs or small caterpillars underneath. Numbers are low enough to deal with by hand.
- Then look at the spacing and color Are they a fist apart, and are the leaves yellowing? Crowded plants do not fill and disease follows.
- Later, look at the shoulders Cover any orange showing above the soil. Feel the diameter at the same time, and once it passes two inches (5 cm) start test pulling.
The spring sowing
A spring crop uses protection to get through cold germination and the bolting risk, then fills the roots and finishes before the wet weather. Let it drag on and splitting and disease arrive together.
For the earliest sowings a cloche is assumed. Sowing outdoors, wait until the soil has genuinely warmed. This is not a crop where sowing earlier gets you an earlier harvest: sow too early and it bolts and you get nothing.
| Stage | Jobs | Watch out for |
|---|---|---|
| Deep winter | Prepare the soil, build the bed, mulch | Dig rough and let frost break the clods |
| Late winter | Sow under a cloche | Use a variety selected to resist bolting |
| Early spring | Sow outdoors, first thinning, ventilate | Open the cloche above 86F (30C) |
| Mid spring | Sow outdoors, second thinning, feed | Remove the cloche once frost has passed |
| Late spring | Final thinning, feed, earth up | Water steadily in a dry spell |
| Early summer | Start lifting | Sudden rain splits them, so lift early |
| Midsummer | Finish lifting | Left in the ground they split |
With a spring crop, do not drag the harvest out. Heavy rain onto a swollen root splits it lengthways overnight.
Sowing dates by climate
Even for the summer sowing, mild and cold gardens differ by nearly a month. In a cold garden the ground freezes, so you sow earlier and lift before winter. In a mild garden the heat lingers, so you can sow later.
To settle your own window in one season, sow twice a fortnight apart and record which did better. The table is only a starting point, and within one district aspect and elevation move it by a week or two.
| Climate | Summer sowing | Spring sowing | Over winter |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mild | Late summer | Early to mid spring | Leave in the ground and lift through winter |
| Average | Mid to late summer | Mid spring | Earth up and lift through midwinter |
| Cold | Midsummer | Mid to late spring | Lift before the ground freezes and store |
In a cold garden the cold period is long, so even a bolt resistant variety is safer sown later in spring.
Recovering a late sowing
If you have missed the window, the choice is between a shorter season variety and moving the whole thing to the next sowing. Sowing a month late usually ends in roots that stop thin in the cold, or plants that bolt.
- Two weeks late in summer Switch to a short rooted variety. That takes about three weeks off the time to harvest, so the roots fill before growth stops.
- A month late in summer Either carry it through winter for a spring crop, or put spinach in that bed and plan for next summer. Sowing anyway gives you thin roots.
- Late in spring Do not sow after mid spring. Bulking then falls in high summer, when the roots do not fill and disease increases. Wait for the summer sowing.
- A month late thinning Reduce to the final spacing in two goes, with feeding and earthing up at the same time. Push the harvest back two or three weeks to let them fill.
Trying to make up lost time with extra fertilizer backfires. You get leaf rather than root, and the splitting risk goes up.
Decisions that pay off later
With carrots the consequence of a job shows up more than a month afterwards. Forgetting to water for a day early on shows in the number of plants weeks later. Thinning late shows in the thickness at harvest. Thinking of each job in terms of what it is for later removes the guesswork.
- Always record the sowing date Harvest is judged partly on days from sowing, roughly 110 to 130 for a summer sowing. Without the date you cannot decide when to test pull.
- Thin by leaf count One or two, three or four, five or six true leaves. Growth speed varies with the weather, so a date alone always drifts.
- Keep the feeding deadline Stop feeding a month before harvest, and work that date backwards from when you expect to lift.
- Plan the rotation Leave two or three years between carrot crops in the same ground. Deciding what follows while you are harvesting keeps the plot moving.