Homegrown carrots are the last word
in crisp, crunchy satisfaction. There's an incredible range
of fantastic varieties to try, many of them only available to the home grower. I mean have you ever seen a purple
carrot in the grocery store? These ravishing roots are easy to grow, so long as you're in the know on the essential steps to success, which is exactly what I will be sharing today. It's time for our Carrot Growing Masterclass. Variety is the spice of life and carrots have it by the tap root full. Now we all know orange carrots, but did you know there were red, yellow, white even purple carrots?
My personal favorite. This rainbow of roots can
really pretty up the plate while adding a touch of novelty to the kitchen. Just look at them, gorgeous. Roots range in size from stump rooted which are great for containers and shallower soils then you've got conically shaped chantenay types which are good for rocky or clay soils, your standard roots which are good all rounders and the granddaddy of all, the imperator carrots, which can reach sizes of
10in or 25cm long, or more. Carrots are also divided into
early types and main crop types. My tactic is to sow a few sowings
of early carrots in the spring. These will produce really tender extra sweet roots which you just can't can't find in the shops, absolute bliss. Then from midsummer I will
switch to sowing a main crop for big chunky roots to enjoy from autumn onwards. Search seed company catalogs and websites to see what tickles your fancy or seek out an award winner such as these for reliability and solid performance. Carrots are best sown direct
where they are to grow as they don't really transplant that well. You sometimes see little sort of
plug trays of carrots for sale but I'd advise against those, they are unlikely to really thrive and if you work out the cost per
carrot it's quite eye watering. Now for best results we want
a sunny position like here and we want a nice smooth crumbly soil for those nice long deep roots, free of any kind of stones for example. Recently manured soil or soil that's very rich can cause roots to fork or become multiple legged and you get those really
funny comedy shaped roots. I get my fair share of those to be honest but it doesn't really bother me because of course it's still really good eating. It's early spring here so do you know what, it's time to make my very first sowing using an early variety that will better cope with this cooler time of year. Now you can make the first sowings of carrots up to a month before your last frost date or two weeks earlier than that if you're sowing in a greenhouse,
a tunnel or say under a cloche. Now this soil here had plenty of crumbly
garden compost added in the autumn and now it is nice and crumbly
and looking really beautiful. You could eat your dinner off this stuff. I'm making quite shallow rows about a
half inch or just under a centimeter deep and I'm spacing the rows about well kind of 8 to 10 inches or 20 to 25 cm apart. As you can see the seeds are really quite tiny so we need to sow them with care because ideally we want the seeds spaced about
half an inch or a centimeter apart. Now if you find them quite tricky to handle you do have a few options. The first is just to take a pot of sand pop your seeds in and then mix it all up and then sew little pinches of this seed sand mix. This way the seed should naturally
land a bit further spaced apart. Another thing I like about this
seed sand mix is that it makes it very clear to see where you've already sown. But if you don't fancy that
there are other options: pelleted seed or these, which are seed tapes. Tapes with the seed nice and evenly
spaced along the tape already. You can see them there just about. Now this is just biodegradable and will rot away and all you have to do is lay it out in the bottom
of your trench like that and then just snap off when you're done and then simply cover them over. I prefer to use just normal seed
because it's an awful lot cheaper and with a little concentration and care you really can space the seeds
quite reasonably far apart. And you can always come back
and thin any excess anyhow. Carrots can be slow to germinate. They can take up to 3 weeks, especially early on in the season like it is now, so please do be patient. People often complain of patchy results but here is perhaps my biggest tip. You need to keep the seeds consistantly
moist until the seedlings appear. That may mean watering every day in warmer weather but the results will be worth it. If a seed has germinated and then
is left to dry out it might fail so consistent moisture will
ensure smoother germination. In hotter weather I like to make
life a little bit easier for myself by covering the soil to keep it cool, shaded and the soil moisture more consistent. Now the easiest way to do that is just to cover the rows
with wooden planks like this or you could use say burlap or hessian. Check underneath the plank every day and as soon as you see the seedlings
beginning to push through, remove it. Carrots are a cool seasoned crop
that really don't like it too hot. Nevertheless it's still a little
bit on the fresh side here so I'm just going to cover the sown
area with this glass window pane here just to keep things a bit snug until they sprout. Now if you're in a really hot climate then you may find that sowing
in the summer is impractical because they do like it on the cooler side, in which case you'll probably
find it's best to sow them from autumn right through to early
spring in the cooler months. And to keep your crop coming I would suggest making a fresh sowing maybe every 3 to four weeks, ending with the main crop
variety to store over the winter. I said earlier that carrots don't transplant well but if you do need to start
them off away from growing areas perhaps somewhere cooler In the heat of summer then there is one option. You can sow them into cardboard
toilet paper tubes like these here. Just fill them with any all purpose potting mix and then simply sow one or two seeds, up to three maybe into each tube and then lightly cover them over. Now once these come up you can grow them on a bit and then plant them into their final spacings, complete with the cardboard tube, there's no need to remove that. Unless you've got a very
steady hand at sowing time or use seed tapes you are likely to have to thin the
seedlings out once they appear. Now I like to do this in stages, initially to about an inch or 3 cm apart and then a few weeks later to something like 2 to 3 in or 5 to 7 cm apart. This way each root has enough space
to swell to its full potential. Do not waste those little thinnings though. Some of them, especially the later ones, are really rather elegant looking and can be used in salads. When you thin the carrots you have a good
chance of releasing that lovely carroty scent, but caution is needed because you may well attract the carrot's number one nemesis, the carrot fly. Now they reach their peak in summer but I exercise caution even in the spring because carrot fly can detect carrots
from up to half a mile away, which you have to hand it to
them is really rather impressive. Then once they hone in on your crop they will soon burrow into the roots, creating a right mess as they go. No one likes ravaged roots. Keep your carrots under the radar by thinning them on a still day so the wind doesn't waft the
carroty scent far and wide and try and thin them at dusk
when the flies are less active. Avoid bruising the foliage cause that will release the carroty aroma as well and water along the row once you
are done to knock back the scent. Even better, thin seedlings
when it's actually raining cause flies don't like to be around when it's wet. Some gardeners just like to snip
the seedlings off at ground level so that's another option for you. The other option you have is just to keep the crop covered at
all times with a row cover of something like a garden
fleece or an insect mesh. Just take the time to lay it properly and thoroughly secure the edges so that the flies can't get in at ground level because they are low flying. If you don't like the look of covers then you could also try growing your carrots between members of the allium
family like say garlic or onions. The oniony scent and different shaped foliage should help to confuse the carrot fly. You could also try of course one of the many carrot fly
resistant varieties available, though do bear in mind none of
those will be 100% resistant. While carrot flies usually come in from elsewhere there is a chance that they will settle where they get their teeth into your crops and then overwinter in the soil. So to avoid that, it's worth growing carrots in new areas of soil each year as part of a crop rotation system. Now I can barely remember what
I grew where when last year, let alone what I had for breakfast this morning. So a simple way to take care of that is to use the Garden Planner. The Garden Planner has a really clever crop rotation system so that when you try to place a crop where it grew in recent years it will flash red to warn you about that. If you'd like to look at the Garden Planner or even enjoy a completely free trial I will pop a link to it in the description below. Be diligent with your weeding and keep the seedlings well
watered in dry weather. As carrots establish though they will need less water from you and in fact watering less often should encourage the roots
to grow down nice and deep, making them surprisingly drought tolerant. That said if it is dry for a prolonged period, do give them a really thorough, deep soaking so that the water travels down
and doesn't just wet the surface. Carrots normally flower in their second year. Of course we don't often see that because carrots are usually harvested
long before that point. That said, if it's very hot hot and dry it can encourage carrots to
flower prematurely or 'bolt'. Bolted carrots have really gnarly, tough roots which are kind of inedible. The flip side of that is that the flowers are absolutely stunning, mesmerizing in fact and they will attract a lot of beneficial bugs which may well go on to help control
pests elsewhere in the garden. For this very reason I sometimes allow a few plants to overwinter and
flower the following summer. They're just so beautiful. And if the variety you are growing is a standard open pollinated variety you could even save yourself some
of the seeds that they produce. Carrots are great in containers. Use a deep enough pot for the roots to grow or choose a stump rooted variety. Now this little lot was sown
right at the end of winter into old potting mix with
a little bit of sand added and then I simply popped over a glass pane to create a kind of slightly warmer microclimate to help them germinate. Anyway they're coming along
really nicely now as you can see and I don't think there's
any need to thin them out because they are at about the right spacing. Now container carrots are
completely reliant on you so you will need to water them
more often than in ground carrots, so give them a good soaking as you don't want it to completely dry out. As well as enabling a super early start, growing carrots in containers means you can raise them up out of the danger
of low flying carrot fly. That means about waist height. And I reckon the beautiful, frothy, ferny foliage, once it gets going, looks just stunning. Knowing when to harvest your carrots can be a little bit of a guessing game, especially for first time growers. But there are a few telltale signs. The first thing to look out for is lots of really lush foliage. That's usually an indicator
of a good sized root beneath. Sometimes you can see the shoulders of the roots just pushing proud of the soil to gauge the size, but if in doubt I like to just brush away the soil around the root to expose the shoulders of it so I can see how big the root is. Harvest the biggest roots first leaving the remainder to grow on. Now it's easier to harvest from moister soil but another little tip is to push down on the root before twisting it and then pulling it up. That way it tends to come away a lot easier. If you do find that roots are snapping however use a fork to loosen the soil around the roots first before lifting. Once they are up, twist off the foliage otherwise it will continue to
draw moisture away from the roots which will turn them soft and spongy. And it's for this reason I can never work out why posh carrots are often sold
with the leaves still intact. It just makes no sense. That said, do not waste the carrot tops. If they're in good condition
you can cook with those too, perhaps whizzing them up into a carrot top pesto to slather over the roasted roots. Mmm, that sounds rather good actually. Early or salad varieties of carrots are best enjoyed before they get too big when they will be at their most sweetest. I also like to enjoy them as
soon as possible after harvesting because fresher carrots are also the sweetest and it's for this reason that it
really is worth growing them yourself. You can't get that freshness in the stores. I of course wash my roots after harvesting them, but I never peel my carrots as a lot
of the vitamin content is in the skins. You can also freeze your carrots. Just cut them into rounds and then blanch them in boiling
water for a couple of minutes to lock in that flavor and color and freshness. And then pat them dry and
then pop them in the freezer. Main crop carrots are bigger, chunkier affairs. That makes them well suited
to lasting through the winter. In my slightly milder temperate climate I just leave the carrots where
they are for most of the winter to lift up as needed. I can always cover them over with leaves or straw to help insulate the ground
from the worst of the frosts. In colder climates however it's best to lift up all of your in the autumn before the ground freezes solid for the winter. Just brush off loosely any soil then store them in boxes of either
damp sand or old potting mix, then keep them out of the reach of vermin in a cool dark place such
as a frost-free outbuilding. There's more on storing root
vegetables in this video so why not head there next. And if you have a favorite
variety or tip for growing carrots then why not share that down below. I'll catch you next time.
