Carrot Week 2013

Carrot week is SO OVER, NHG. What are you thinkin'...Carrot MONTH??? Carrot YEAR??? What?



CC

CapeCoddess wrote:Carrot week is SO OVER, NHG. What are you thinkin'...Carrot MONTH??? Carrot YEAR??? What?



CC

It is a very flexible sided box this week thing

Well, according to my handy dandy chart, carrots should be direct seeded 4/26, so hmm.

Carrot week has to be a flexible date .
At present we are still getting minus 3 centigrade frost most nights ..my carrot seeds would start running back into the packet if I chose to try and sow them any time soon.

CapeCoddess wrote:Carrot week is SO OVER, NHG. What are you thinkin'...Carrot MONTH??? Carrot YEAR??? What?



CC

Hahaha, this made me laugh.

Ive got sprouts in my squares, but dont know if they are carrots or weeds that have flown in, ha!

Great news! I have one carrot sprout in my square of Calliopes, which was planted in my 7-way Mel's Mix 04/17. If I remember correctly, 12 days is a record for carrots sprouting in my garden(s).

I plan to add a square of Kurodas today. Nantes-types will go into some of the 6" beds later on.

Eureeka ! ... the last two afternoons have been tee shirt warm and a weed called St David's Wart has started to appear , it has white flowers .... so now is the time for me to sow my carrots .

I've gone mad and put in :-
A square of rainbow mixed , one of early nantees 5 , one of nantees Frubrung & one of nantees 2 flyaway .

The germination won't take long if the average day temp is almost sixty farenheit.


I think I'll slip a few squares of pond liner over the the squares & seeds just to get the warmth into the ground fro a couple of days .

Nothing sprouting in my carrot Tidy-Cat-square in the back porch yet. It is snowing again...after an 80 degree day just four days ago. I'm very glad I chose a container to plant in for carrot week. This weather makes gardening a challenge! Fingers crossed we will have some above freezing and below 80 degree days coming soon so I can attempt some cool crops in my 'real' garden squares. It would make me ever so happy to see the carrots coming up in my Tidy Cat container though.

we have sprouts

sowed 4-13-13
seen one sprout a few days ago ...so im going to say it took about 2 weeks from sowing to sprouts these seeds were soaked over night before sowing..... and....hubby put on some netting to keep critters out....



happy gardening
rose who is hoping we get some carrots this year!

Box inside a box - neat idea.

I'll bet you could do something with portable cold frames that way - just a box with a plastic/glass cover.

NHGardener wrote:Box inside a box - neat idea.

I'll bet you could do something with portable cold frames that way - just a box with a plastic/glass cover.

oh that's a great Idea!!....I like the idea of a lid....it would be better then the netting....im so afraid the carrots are going to grow up thru this netting and get stuck...but..we need something to cover them until they are big enough....once they are big enough the critters seem to leave them alone.....with a lid it would provide the warmth and protection they need and it would then be easy to take the lid off as they grow.....thanks NHG!

happy gardening
rose

Let us know how that works for you.

Last summer my carrots never materialized. I planted seeds a couple days ago, crossing my fingers. A protective box sounds good to me, even one small area at a time till they sprout.

Well I finally got three squares of a packet of carrots that says "Garden Carrot Mix". The carrots are supposed to be from 6-12". I tried to sort the seeds a bit by size, lol. I measured the box's depth and it is at least 12" deep. There is something to be said for making my beds that deep. I could not find the rainbow colors that we were supposed to get. I got this mix and a packet of purple, which for some reason is not with all my other seed packets. Of course when I need them they have walked away. When I find them, I will plant a square or two.

I have a question. I know if carrots at the end of their life cycle get some cold temps it makes them sweeter. Would the same be true if they were planted and early on in their life cycle they got exposed to some cold temps and then continued to grow. Do you think that would give them the sweetness? I probably didn't word that very well.

My Carrot Week carrot box is sprouting.

Some are a bit leggy seeing as how I've got to bring them in all the time because of our crazy weather. But yeah carrots!!

Tricia, I understood your question just fine. I am only guessing and going by a little of what I've read, but I think the carrots need the cold to set the sweetness at the end not the beginning. The carrots need to be formed, and then they concentrate their sugar trying to survive.

That makes sense, thank you!

Triciasgarden wrote:Well I finally got three squares of a packet of carrots that says "Garden Carrot Mix". The carrots are supposed to be from 6-12". I tried to sort the seeds a bit by size, lol. I measured the box's depth and it is at least 12" deep. There is something to be said for making my beds that deep. I could not find the rainbow colors that we were supposed to get. I got this mix and a packet of purple, which for some reason is not with all my other seed packets. Of course when I need them they have walked away. When I find them, I will plant a square or two.

I have a question. I know if carrots at the end of their life cycle get some cold temps it makes them sweeter. Would the same be true if they were planted and early on in their life cycle they got exposed to some cold temps and then continued to grow. Do you think that would give them the sweetness? I probably didn't word that very well.

The germination wil take longer than the usual 21 days or so , growth will be slow . If the cold spell comes at the wrong time & it turns to a hard frost for a day or so when it ends the carrots tend to go to seed in the same year.

Thank you!

My guys started to sprout a few days ago and I finally got a pic today. Should I thin my sprouts? I have 2-3 sprouts per hole.

Yep, my mix has a lot of wood chunks in it.

I thin out when the seedlings are about a good inch tall. You probably know to snip off the extras. That way no damage occurs to the little tiny roots. This time I'll try it with little manicure scissors someone mentioned on the forum recently, though I've yanked them with finger tips in the past without wiping out everything.

One little sprout...one little sprout...my Tidy Cat 'box' has one little sprout! I dream of at least ONE carrot week carrot!

I put together a fresh wood-lath grid tonight and plan to plant one box of my "real" garden tomorrow. Fingers crossed we'll stay above freezing and below 80 long enough for more carrots, spinach, and lettuce to be harvested!

I am SOOOOOoooo ready for garden season!

Thank you, LM. Manicure scissors are a great idea.

Here's my carrot square!



Any idea what to look for/when they are ready to pull?

I went out yesterday and all my little sprouts are gone! If I have one sprout left in each square that's pushing it. I DO have lone sprout in my carrot week square so I guess I'd better cover it.

There are no rabbit foot prints or anything I could see. What eat's carrot sprouts???

CC

Here are some of my carrots as of this morning...I have a total of 10 squares (Scarlet Nantes and Kuroda).

R&R 1011 wrote:Thank you, LM. Manicure scissors are a great idea.