Among all the crops grown in the garden, carrots rightfully occupy one of the leading places. It is perfectly stored all winter, which allows you to serve fresh carrot dishes to the table year-round. A variety of methods for its preparation and a high content of vitamins makes carrots an integral part of the diet. Carrots are used for baby and diet food, desserts, side dishes, salads are prepared from it, it is used in creating many dishes. You can endlessly list the advantages of this orange root crop.
In cultivation, it is quite unpretentious, but not everyone knows how to plant carrots correctly. To begin with, you must carefully select and prepare the soil. It is preferable to plant carrots in light, loose soil. If there is always a high level of moisture in the ground, carrots can rot. In dry soils, the fruits will grow coarse, "wooden." It is worth abandoning sites on which there are many weeds. Since they will sprout much earlier than carrots, thereby hampering its growth.
A half a month before planting, you can make mineral fertilizer. Never use manure. It will not bring any benefit, on the contrary, it will create too acidic environment. Even if the manure was brought into the ground the previous year, the carrots will have an irregular shape.
In addition to soil characteristics, it is necessary to take into account, and then plant carrots. Best predecessors: cucumbers, cabbage, onions, tomato, garlic, potatoes and green crops (excluding salad). It is not recommended to sow carrots after parsley and carrots.
When choosing which month to plant carrots, one must take into account the climatic features of the cultivated area. Seeds and sprouts of carrots are resistant to short-term frosts, so sowing can be done quite early. Experienced gardeners advise planting carrots as soon as the snow melts. Seeds do not need to be soaked before planting. For faster emergence of seedlings, it is desirable to cover the crops with film. Dense, polyethylene in the early spring months or breathable in warmer times.
There are several ways to plant carrots properly. The most convenient is the use of paper tapes with seeds glued on them. You can buy them ready-made or make them yourself. To do this, glue carrot seeds on a tape of thin paper at a distance of 5 cm, using a paste. Tapes with seeds need to be laid in previously prepared shallow grooves, and sprinkled on top of the ground.
In the same grooves, you can just sow the seeds before mixing them with sand (carrot seeds are very small, so without sand it will be difficult to plant them at the optimal distance from each other). You can mix seeds not with sand, but with radish seeds. It ripens much earlier than carrots, and after its collection the carrots will not need to be thinned out.
A longer way to plant carrots correctly is to sow in the wells. To do this, in the garden, you need to make holes in the form of a cone at a distance of about 10 cm from each other. Peat in them. Then, in each well, sow 3 seeds of carrots to a depth of 1 cm.
In order to collect a worthy crop in the fall, it is important to know not only how to plant carrots properly, but also how to care for them.
Before emergence, carrots need abundant watering, then the amount of moisture needs to be slightly reduced. In warm weather, it is enough to water the plant 2 times a week.
After the emergence of friendly shoots, carrots are thinned, leaving the strongest shoots. In addition, weeding is very important especially in the first months.
In the vicinity of carrots, it is best to plant onions, its smell will protect the root crop from pests.
Good care will allow you to grow carrots that will meet all the requirements and perfectly tolerate winter storage.