How to grow an edible carrot?

I can't seem to grow carrots worth a flip. I just pulled up my spring carrots even the Babettes that are suppose to be small were...itty bitty,big as my thumb and smaller. Purple Haze and Parmex...neither were over 3-4 inches long. Purple Haze had pretty good size in girth and Parmex was thin as my little finger and smaller and both had root nemetoids(sp?). My bed/rows are very well ammend w/compost . What kind of fertilizer do they need? I tried cotton seed meal on my radishes last year and got a good crop. Will it work for carrots too?


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But how do they taste? :) I prefer smaller carrots. I'm planting some in the next few weeks for fall and winter harvest - supposedly they taste much sweeter after the cold.

I'll leave the expert question you asked for others :)

can't make mysel taste the warty buggers

First you eliminate the nematodes. You may have to go to container gardening or to raised beds with nematode free soil.

http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/NG021

Oh lordy...that's greek too me...LOL...I need it in layman's terms. Isn't there a type of marigold you sew/plant then turn it under to deterr nematodes?

This is not as bad as some others I pulled.I tossed them on the compost pile but now I think I should go father them and toss them on the burn pile instead.

maybe I should get some seeds for this bad boy(sorry I couldn't make it a click-on)

http://www.gourmetseeds.com/Carrot_seed.o.html

Flakee Autumn King carrot


Oh goody,it did show up as a click-on...YAY!

This message was edited Jul 23, 2008 12:22 PM

bigred, carrots don't want too much nitrogen - plant them in fairly light soil and keep the compost away from them. I plant Mokum early and then again in the middle of July. They taste good small and big, a really sweet carrot. I plant Yellowstone later, early August. They will winter over in the ground and still be sweet in early spring.

I planted Mokum too - only a few so a tiny harvest - I just wanted some early carrots. I was impressed by their sweetness in this hot July weather.

Ok,I have another area hub's that just disc'ed and tilled for me w/ his tractor. Had him push a big pile of compost I had cooking into it as he worked the soil but it wasn't all that big of a pile. Then I tilled it again w/ my tiller to break up any lumps and to get the out-line of my rows.It's mostly a sandy soil. Is triple 13 a got all purpose fertilizer for carrots?

I was reading on a webpage that compost was good for veg. garden soil because it has microbes in it that keep the soil healthy. Also read about dissolving sugar in boiling water then spraying plants for nematodes but how does that work putting something like sugar water on plants above ground for something in the soil. Maybe I read it wrong.

I just sewed New Kuroda carrots in the front veg.garden and it's got quite a bit of compost in it. Have a carrot seed mix coming in the mail. I'm going to trial them in the back veg. garden we just tilled.

Next year,I plan on planting a LOT of marigolds in the veg. garden. I see I've made some notation about rapeseed and something called chitin.More reading and studying for the winter months. Also notes about letting garden lay fallow while solarizing then till it several times to bring nematodes to surface to be killed by the sun. My gardens are small so leaving it to lay fallow and solarize is not practical. I have done it in the passed when I was just raising veg. for own use but now I sell at market.

Boy oh boy! I've been gardening for years but just for fun and few vegs. for our table. I've never had so much to read and learn about it until I started to grow for market. Floating row covers placed at just the right time to keep vine bores out of cukes and melons,stinkbugs on the tomatoes,deer in the peas,worms on the corn....gives me a whole new respect for those that have been doing it(organically) long before I ever started piddling at it.