How To Grow Large And Sweet Carrots? Techniques, Agricultural Techniques, Tips And Secrets. Photo

Carrots are a popular and beloved vegetable crop in every summer cottage. Rich in trace elements, carotene, vitamins, substances that increase immunity and help to cure many ailments. Carrots are one of the main crops in baby foods. And it is very sad when the labors spent on its cultivation end in crooked, ugly squiggles of dubious taste, because in the case of carrots, the external corresponds to the internal content. How to grow carrots even, large, tasty, with a high content of nutrients? We'll figure out.

Content:

• Conditions for a good harvest of carrots
• The main reasons for small carrots
• How to get large carrots?
• How to improve the taste of a root crop?
• Watering carrots
• Carrot thinning rules
• Carrot varieties

Conditions for a good harvest of carrots

Carrots are a frost-resistant crop that can be sown before winter and at several times from early spring. In the southern regions, it is sown in warm winter (February) windows and an early harvest of a delicious vegetable is obtained. Carrots are not afraid of frost.

To grow a decent harvest, you need to pay attention to:

• biological characteristics of carrots,
• compliance with the requirements of growing technology,
• soil structure and fertility, its preparation for sowing,
• acidity of the soil,
• features of providing moisture.

The main reasons for small carrots

• Carrots do not tolerate swampy lowland areas, closely located fruit and forest tree crops. It will not be smooth and graceful, and even more so when grown in the shade, under the canopy of the garden.
• The culture needs a deep-loosened nutrient soil, air and permeable. The presence of fine gravel, pebbles, rhizomes and other inclusions in the soil causes curvature and crushing of the carrot root crop.
• The root crop needs bright lighting. The carrot beds are positioned so that each plant receives adequate lighting. Tall crops (tomatoes, eggplants) should not shade the carrot tops. Carrots are best located south of tall neighbors.
• Carrots will not bear fruit in acidified soils. Therefore, a year before sowing crops, the soil is deoxidized by the introduction of humus, chalk, lime, dolomite flour. The soil under the carrots should be neutral with zero acidity in the range of pH = 6-7.
• Ugly, branched, burst carrot roots and small root crops are obtained with poor soil preparation, spring pre-sowing soil deoxidation, the use of chlorine-containing fertilizers, with an excess of nitrogen fertilizers, thickened crops.
• The value of carrots is determined by the amount of nutrients that are formed in the root vegetable as a result of metabolic processes with timely receipt of moisture and nutrients. Therefore, the lack of moisture and nutrition at the beginning and their excess at the end of the growing season of carrots will change not only the external forms and characteristics, but also significantly reduce the taste.

How to get large carrots?

Choosing a site for sowing carrots and predecessors

The plot must be leveled, without a slope, and evenly lit. Good predecessors and neighbors are squash and other pumpkin seeds, legumes, onions for turnips, garlic, potatoes, tomatoes, eggplants. Celery, parsley, dill, and other umbellates are unwanted neighbors and predecessors. In the culture rotation, carrots return to their previous place in the 4th – 5th year.

Preparing the soil for sowing carrots

The soil for sowing carrots is prepared in the fall. After harvesting the previous crop, the tops are taken out from the site, watering is provoked to obtain an autumn wave of weed seedlings. If the site is unsuccessful, they clean it of stones, rhizomes, dig it onto a shovel bayonet. Spread a mixture or complex fertilizers that do not contain chloride forms. Fertilizers are embedded in the soil with simultaneous crushing of coarse clods of earth and leveling the surface of the site with a rake.

In the spring, the bed for carrots is once again dug deeply, especially if the soil is heavy clay and loamy in composition. To fluff them, perlite or vermiculite, sand can be added to the root layer.

Fertilizing carrots

From mineral fertilizers during the basic preparation of the soil, nitrogen-phosphorus fertilizers are applied at the rate of 50-60 and 40-50 g / sq., Respectively. m. on soils of average fertility. You can add nitrophos, ammophos at a dose of 60-80 g / sq. m. or fertilizing vegetable mixture in the same dose. Fertilizers can be applied for digging or during the final preparation of the site (for raking).

On highly fertile soils, 1 / 2-1 / 3 parts of the above-mentioned doses of fertilizers are applied under carrots, sometimes they only manage by adding ash - a glass per sq. m. and subsequent dressings during the growing season. On marginal soils, the main dose of fertilizers is not increased, but reinforced top dressing is used in the first half of the carrot growing season.

Sowing dates for carrots

Carrot is a frost-resistant culture. Seedlings can withstand temperatures down to -2 ° C. Developed plants do not die in short-term frost down to -4 ° C. Using these properties, some gardeners sow the crop as soon as the soil warms up to + 3 … + 4 ° С. But for such early crops, as well as for subwinter crops, you need to choose early ripening carrot varieties. And the seedlings are received on the 20th - 30th day.

The best for sowing carrots is still considered to be heating 10-15 cm of the soil layer to + 8 … + 10 ° С. In this case, seedlings appear on the 12th - 15th day. If the initial period of carrot development takes place at low temperatures, the plants will bloom in the first year, and the root crop will be rough and tasteless. The temperature optimum ranges from + 17 … + 24 ° С. With an increase of more than + 25 ° C, metabolic processes in the root crop slow down, the carrot root crop becomes fibrous. It is necessary to reduce the temperature of the soil by watering and mulching, and the temperature of the air - by fine spraying (fog-like watering).

How to improve the taste of a root crop?

With a properly prepared area, the taste of carrot root crops depends on the supply of basic nutrients (and their proper ratio), trace elements, moisture, stand density and varieties during the growing season.

Top dressing carrots

Carrots do not tolerate overfeeding and reacts to it with a decrease in the quality of root crops, especially when there is an excess of nitrogen fertilizers. The pulp of the root vegetable becomes tasteless. But carrots need a good supply of potassium, which contributes to the accumulation of sugars in root crops, increases the shelf life and overall yield. Of potash fertilizers, it is better to use kalimag. It is chlorine-free.

During the warm period, carrots are fed 2-3 times, sometimes on depleted soils - 4 times.

First feeding of carrots

3 weeks after carrot shoots - with a solution of kalimag and urea (15 g / 10 l of water each). You can add 20 g of superphosphate to the solution. With sufficient filling of the soil with fertilizers in the autumn-spring preparation, the first top dressing can be carried out later, in the phase of 5-6 leaves.

Second feeding of carrots

After 2-3 weeks, the second top dressing is performed by introducing kemira-wagon (50-60 g / sq. M), nitrophoska, Rost-2, soluble in the same dose.

The third feeding of carrots

The next top dressing is carried out after 2-3 weeks (in the growth phase of the root crop) with ash (on wet soil) at the rate of 20 g / sq. m or a mixture of trace elements. The phase of growth of the root crop falls on the end of June – July.

For the fruits to be sweet with tender pulp, between 2 and 3 feeding, foliar boric acid solution (2 g / 10 l of water) is effective. Potassium is very important in the composition of the elements, which contributes to the delivery of nutrients to root crops. Therefore, 3 top dressing can be carried out with phosphorus-potassium fats at the rate of 30 and 40 g / sq., Respectively. m.

Fourth feeding of carrots

On depleted soils, if required, the 4th top dressing is carried out, which falls on the ripening phase of the root crop. Most often it is carried out with the aim of enlarging the fruit. It is usually carried out in early to mid September (depending on the ripening period of the variety). This top dressing can be carried out with the same fats and doses as the third, or in a different combination, but excluding nitrogen fertilizers.

Watering carrots

Small, bitter, woody fruits of carrots are obtained with a lack of moisture, especially in the period from sowing to germination, and in the phase of intensive growth of root crops. Before sprouting, the topsoil is kept constantly moist. Watering during this period is best done in the evening, mulch aisles with fine mulch no higher than 2–3 cm. When the humidity regime fluctuates and excessively abundant watering, carrots can form a large root crop, but it will be tasteless and full of cracks.

After germination, the culture is watered weekly until the root crops grow, and then they switch to watering 2-3 times a month, but the irrigation rate is increased. After each watering, mulching the carrots is mandatory. It prevents crust formation and reduces the temperature of the topsoil. Watering is stopped 2 weeks before harvesting.

Carrot thinning rules

Aligned carrot roots grow with correct 2-3-fold thinning. The first thinning is carried out after the appearance of the 3rd leaf. Before thinning, the aisles are loosened and watering is carried out. The sprouts are removed with plucking or tweezers, but do not pull out, so as not to disturb the root system of the remaining plants.

Waste is removed away from the garden so as not to attract a carrot fly. To scare it away after thinning in the aisles, you can scatter onion arrows or cover the plants. After 2.5-3.0 weeks, the crops are thinned again, increasing the distance between the plants from 2 to 6 cm.

The 3rd thinning is actually the sampling of the first crop. Carrots are demanding on the air regime of the soil. Once every 7-10 days, the aisles of the carrots are loosened, stirring up the mulch.

Carrot varieties

To grow sweet carrots, you need to choose a zoned variety with a certain root quality. Breeders offer a wide range of seeds of early, medium and late ripening periods with a high content of sugars, which are distinguished by dessert taste, long shelf life and other qualities.

For growing in the country, you can recommend universal varieties: Shantane, Nantes-4, Karotelka. Stable, unpretentious varieties. Nantes-4 can be used for winter crops. For all regions of Russia, the Moscow winter A-545 variety is suitable. The early-ripening variety Polar cranberry forms a harvest in 2 months and is recommended for cultivation in northern latitudes due to its qualities.

In families with small children, the following varieties are irreplaceable: Vitamin-6, Viking and Sugar gourmet, Children's sweetness, which are distinguished by a high content of carotene and sugar. Sugar gourmet is one of the sweetest varieties of carrots. Baby sweetness keeps well until the next harvest. If necessary, you can select a root crop with the desired quality in the annual catalog of varieties and hybrids.