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Growing Carrots Through Seedlings
Growing Carrots Through Seedlings

Video: Growing Carrots Through Seedlings

Video: Growing Carrots Through Seedlings
Video: How to Grow Carrots from Seed to Harvest 2024, March
Anonim

An unusual method of growing carrots in the garden through seedlings

He first lit a cigarette in 1942, as a 16-year-old boy, and 45 years later there were serious lung problems. In 1987, while on treatment, with the help of a magician, he quit smoking for good. On his advice, he began to eat a tablespoon of raw, finely grated carrots, seasoned with vegetable oil every day. Lung problems dissipated.

Carrots grow
Carrots grow

Many years later I learned that in Kyoto (Japan) information about 3.8 million people (their habits, what they drink and eat) were entered into a computer, and after 17 years the results were summed up. 60% more people who smoked died than nonsmokers, and those who ate carrots and yellow-green vegetables survived by 30% more than those who did not eat them. I decided to provide my family with my carrots.

How many carrots do you need? My family now consists of two people and consumes about 150 grams of carrots a day for medical and preventive purposes and for cooking. It turns out that the annual consumption of this root crop is about 55 kilograms. Scientists in various calculations take the average yield of carrots equal to 3 kg / m². To get the amount of carrots I need with the traditional cultivation technology, it is necessary to sow them on an area of 18.25 m². Where can I get so much free land if I have a whole garden with aisles between the ridges equal to 117.5m²?

I thought about it and developed my own, still experimental technology. I allocated 0.8 m² for this experiment on a 2.5 m² garden bed, next to parsley and coriander. In the fall, I dug 9.7 kg of bright orange root crops from this area. I was satisfied with the result, but not with myself. I noticed the shortcomings. This season I will continue the experience.

Features of the new technology

Journalist Vladimir Mashenkov during a radio walk around Neskuchny Sad to the host's question: "Why do the Chinese have high harvests?" answered like this: "They adjust technology to the plants, and not vice versa." This is what I have been doing since I got 6 acres in gardening. The basis of my technology for growing potatoes and vegetables, including carrots, is: crop rotation, manual labor and the seedling method with planting plants at equal distances from each other in all directions, over the entire area of the garden.

Such a landing with enviable accuracy is ensured by marking the holes with a marker made according to the scheme: two similar equilateral triangles with a common vertex. A "tooth" is fixed at each vertex. Planting carrot seedlings according to the equilateral triangle scheme provides the most efficient use of the entire area of the garden, reduces the competition of carrot plants for the feeding area, eliminates such laborious operations as repeated thinning, pulling, loosening and weeding. At the same time, uniform illumination of the plants is achieved, and when the tops are closed, the soil surface is shaded, weeds do not grow, a soil crust does not form, moisture is saved.

Choosing a variety of carrots

Variety selection is the most important link in the successful cultivation of vegetables, including carrots. Using catalogs, various agricultural literature, I studied the seed assortment and opted for the Vitamin-6 carrot variety. The variety is resistant to flowering. The period from germination to harvesting is 80-100 days. The root crop has a regular cylindrical shape with a steep slope to the tail, bright orange color (a sign of high carotene content), length 15-17 cm, weight 100-160 grams. The variety is intended for fresh consumption and winter storage.

When buying seeds, I pay special attention to the package. It must be branded and meaningful - have a description of the properties of the variety and a brief agricultural technique. Due to the fact that I use precise, spot seeding, I buy only pelleted seeds.

In the store I bought a package with just such seeds. He had a color photograph of a root crop, all the necessary information and 500 dragees in a rigid transparent shell. Such a shell protects the dragee from technical damage. For the season of this year, I bought other varieties: Nantes without a core, Losinoostrovskaya-13 and the Queen of Autumn. All dragee sachets in a gel shell. The special composition of the dragee creates ideal conditions for seed germination.

Carrots in a crop rotation

For carrots, my crop rotation schedule is potatoes. After harvesting it, the soil in the beds remains loose to a depth of 25-30 cm, which ensures excellent formation of root crops, even of large varieties of carrots, and this gives a yield.

Potatoes and carrots have no common diseases and pests, perhaps, except for the wireworm, but in my crop rotation its number is so insignificant that even on potatoes I do not find traces of this pest. Of the seven ridges set aside in the crop rotation for green crops and root crops, I single out one for carrots in the coming season, but located in the sunniest place. The carrots themselves will serve as a precursor for the beans.

Growing carrot seedlings

I sow seeds in late April - early May, immediately after arriving at the site. In a box, in a loose moist soil mixture, I spread the dragee seeds with tweezers to a depth of 2 cm according to a 3x3 cm scheme. I water it depending on the type of dragee, taking into account the recommendations on the package.

As soon as the first shoots appeared, I reduce the intensity of watering and move the box with seedlings to a sunny place in the garden. I hide him from "intruders". When the third leaf appears, I do the first liquid top dressing. The fourth leaf has formed - I am preparing the seedlings for picking. Before that, I spill the soil mixture in the box abundantly so that the root ball does not crumble during excavation and picking.

Preparing the garden

I start to cook it immediately after sowing the pills in the box, or even earlier. The soil in the beds ripens quickly. I loosen with a pitchfork to a depth of 25-30 cm, without wrapping the layer. Given the high planting density (300 plants per 2.5 m²), I apply an increased rate of fertilizers: I pour three buckets of last year's compost mixed with rotted manure onto the garden bed. I level the piles with a rake.

I measure out 12 tablespoons of the mineral fertilizer Kemir-universal 2 into a convenient bowl and evenly scatter it over the entire surface of the garden with a teaspoon. With regular watering, this complex fertilizer dissolves evenly throughout the growing season. Carrots love soil with a neutral reaction, pH 6.5-7.0. For deoxidation, I sprinkle 2 liters of sifted ash evenly over the entire bed. By shallow loosening and a rake, I put all fertilizers into the soil to a depth of 5-15 cm.

Weed control

It begins immediately, as soon as the preparation of the beds is finished. I do everything in order to provoke the rapid germination of weed seeds, up to watering with warm water, pink from potassium permanganate, and covering the ridge with spunbond. After a week, the bed will begin to actively turn green. I'm in no hurry with weeding. But on the day when the fourth leaf is formed in the box near the carrot seedlings, early in the morning, when the sun does not bake, I take a garden fork and a bucket and start hand weeding. After 35-45 minutes, not a single blade of grass along with the roots remains in the garden. For whom manual weeding is difficult, use a device such as "Swift", flat cutter, hand rotary cultivator, etc. Towards evening, when the heat subsides, I start marking holes and planting seedlings.

Acting in this way in my crop rotation annually, I reduce the stock of weed seeds in the beds to a minimum, and labor costs are more than paid off compared to the thinning, pulling, loosening and weeding inherent in traditional technologies.

Well markings

It is preceded by the choice of the marker caliber. Repeatedly measured the diameters of leaf rosettes of mature carrot plants. Results: 9-10 cm. Last season, I took it equal to 10 cm. Accordingly, the marker caliber (the size of the sides of the triangles) chose 10 cm. Then, according to the principle of "trail in trail" I mark holes throughout the garden area.

I will continue my experiments this season. I will plant half of the beds according to the 10 cm scheme, the other according to the 9 cm scheme. The planting density will respectively be 106.4 plants / m2 and 134.4 plants / m2. A total of 301 plants will be planted on a 2.5 m2 garden. The best planting scheme will be determined in the fall by the yield and the average weight of the root crop.

Picking carrot seedlings

I observe the following rules: I start work when the sun decreases. I check the soil moisture of the bed by pressing the planting peg in two or three places. If the walls of the formed hole do not collapse, then the soil is sufficiently moist. If necessary, I expand and deepen the marked hole with a peg so that the root with a lump will fit in it. The planting depth is such as not to cover the foliage growth point with soil. I loosen the soil around the seedlings in a box with a peg. I take out one plant from the box with my fingers by the leaves. For the stem you can't! Planting it in the hole, I peg the root vertically down. I firmly fix the plant in the hole, pressing the soil around the stem with a peg.

Sowing carrots with seeds

If you purchased a bag of carrot seeds with gel pills, I suppose you can plant seeds in the garden. You just need to make the teeth of the marker without sharpening and no more than 1.5-2 cm long. The hole will be shallow, and its bottom will be dense. Before sowing, you need to weed the beds twice.

Protecting carrots from pests

To protect against leaf flies, carrot flies and any other pests, the technology provides for covering plants with a spunbond, draped over U-shaped low (20-25 cm) arches. The wind resistance of the shelter is ensured as follows: I tuck the edges of the film along the entire perimeter of the garden bed under the boards from the vegetable boxes and press them between the soil and the formwork. The size of the spanbond panel for a garden bed is 2.5 m2, taking into account the height of the arches and the growth of plants, I cut 3.5x2m. Covering with spunbond provides not only 100% protection from insects, but also significantly improves the microclimate in the garden, and this accelerates the ripening of carrots and increases the yield! You can, of course, do without installing arcs. Plants are able to lift light spanbond to their height.

Carrot planting care

It consists in liquid fertilizing and irrigation, taking into account the rainfall and actual soil moisture. In the first half of the growing season (the period from germination to the beginning of the formation of root crops), feeding is done more often, and the concentration of fertilizer solutions is lower. In the second half of the growing season, I do feeding less often, but I double the concentration of the solution. I use Kemira Lux water-soluble fertilizer for top dressing.

I do the first, as already noted above, when the third leaf appears in the seedling box of the plants. Dissolve 20 g of powder in 20 liters of water. I water from a teapot in a thin stream in the aisle, this requires about 2 liters of top dressing. The second time I do it on the day of planting seedlings in the garden. The third feeding is in 7-10 days. In the next 1-2 dressings, the concentration of the solution is 20 g of powder per 10 liters of water per garden bed with the addition of 1 liter of filtered ash extract to this liquid.

Let me explain why I am doing this: Finnish agrochemists have established that a double excess of potassium over nitrogen in fertilizer has a positive effect on the safety of root crops in winter. We have developed a new water-soluble fertilizer Kemira Plus. But I could not find it in our stores. I had to use a folk remedy. Furnace ash contains a high percentage of highly soluble potassium.

I prepare an ash extract as follows: I pour two glasses of sifted ash into a small container per liter of boiling water. After 24 hours, through the filter, I add the resulting extract to a bucket with Kemir Lux solution. I pour the ash into the compost. For fertilizing watering, I fold back the spunbond. Conventional watering is by sprinkling on a bed covered with spunbond.

Harvesting and storing carrots

On September 4, loosening the soil, he carefully took out the root crops, removed the stuck soil from them with his hands and rags, cut off the tops and placed them in a plastic trellis container. Then he washed the roots with running water. Weighed it. The average weight of root crops was equal to 112 g. Obvious shortage. The reason for this is early cleaning. Before leaving for the city, I laid everything for cooling under the house. After the bulkhead, dry clean root crops were divided into two parts. I put one small one in a pan with sand, then in a buried barrel. The rest of the harvest went to the city. My wife canned some of the carrots, and we put the rest of the root vegetables in perforated plastic bags in an old refrigerator in a zone with a temperature of + 2-3 ° C. This season, I hope to significantly increase the yield of this vitamin vegetable.

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