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Author Topic: Carrot seed germinations this year.  (Read 8431 times)

cloddopper

  • Joined Jun 2013
  • South Wales .Carmarthenshire. SA18
Re: Carrot seed germinations this year.
« Reply #15 on: June 09, 2014, 09:48:52 am »
Clodhopper - why do you sow in square feet. are you making a specific study or do you find you get a better crop?

I practice a way of gardening called " All New Square Foot Gardening " ( ANSFG ) I have disability problems that make bending painful and likely to harm me further.
 My beds are made of 900 mm high mortared engineering bricks each bed area is around 9 sq feet . Each set of beds is in a six  long block .

I use the masks because I have peripheral neuropathy  pain in arms legs toes fingers etc . half the time I can't feel if I have a seed ( I can just about feel a beetroot seed) in my fingers so tipping one or two on a surface such as on the mask means I can see it and slide the seed down the planting hole.

 The best thing about the raised beds & ANSFG is that I can have wheel chair accessible paths all round the blocks of beds  that is weed free as my paths are made of 3" thick cast concrete .
 The weed growing area in the beds is much reduced so I have far less weed to contend with .
 I fill my beds with a non soil growth medium , made of peat ot coir waste , vermiculite and animals dung c/w beddings and all manner of veg & plant 7 all manner of household rot-able  waste ,.as well as the odd bale of wet straw . ( it is composted as per the 18 day Berkley hot composting method ) because fo the hot composting method i use there is very very few weed seeds or growth nodes  left alive to germinate /grow .  The vermiculite helps keep the moisture level stable and holds the liquefied nutrients that come as a result of the decaying matter in readiness for the plant hair roots to take up .

The initial hard work setting things up was hard for me, but now it's up & running means I should be able to garden and enjoy it for another 20 years or so before my birth certificate runs out.
 
Strong belief , triggers the mind to find the way ... Dyslexia just makes it that bit more amusing & interesting

Bert

  • Joined Jan 2012
  • Isle of Mull
Re: Carrot seed germinations this year.
« Reply #16 on: June 09, 2014, 01:31:32 pm »
Cloddopper your garden sounds amazing. Pictures please  :thumbsup:


I harvested my first carrots today :yum: .

caracroft

  • Joined Apr 2013
  • Essex
  • 3 Saddlebacks and 12 Copper Black Chickens
    • Caras Croft Blog
Re: Carrot seed germinations this year.
« Reply #17 on: June 24, 2014, 07:27:20 pm »
I have sown the same 2 rows of carrots in my poly tunnel 3 times now starting in april and have just seen 3 seedlings about an inch high!!!  I had carrots coming out of my ears last year although germination wasnt goo and took a couple of sowings even then!!

I dont know whether to discard the seeds and buy new packets and try again ?

Caracroft  ???

pgkevet

  • Joined Jul 2011
Re: Carrot seed germinations this year.
« Reply #18 on: June 28, 2014, 05:57:29 pm »
I sowed 2x 20metre rows.. about 1 month apart ..both germinated but slowly and wth a lot of gaps - I had sown very thinly this year too. It's also been very dry and that is challenging for me to water as much as I'd like.
According to my reading carrots don't like to be too hot for geminating either so after the last 2 day's rain here I've just taken the opportuniy to stick another row in - actually a triple 6/7yard row on the end of the pumpkin aisle..

(more brassica seedlings went in today too)

MAK

  • Joined Nov 2011
  • Middle ish of France
    • Cadeaux de La forge
Re: Carrot seed germinations this year.
« Reply #19 on: July 06, 2014, 06:06:16 pm »
Sorry clodhoppers but I have had a few days away and agree that your garden sounds great. I guess you have also demonstrated that you have to do so much more planning and hardworking compared to us able body types who just plod a row , scatter seed and hope for the best.
Bye the bye - mice have worked their way along my rows of carrots so I have had to harvest and freeze those they left. The rabbits did benefit from half eaten carrots and the tops. :o



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cloddopper

  • Joined Jun 2013
  • South Wales .Carmarthenshire. SA18
Re: Carrot seed germinations this year.
« Reply #20 on: July 08, 2014, 11:54:35 pm »
Front garden this time last year ..we are about three weeks behind for this year .

The onion bed , onions now lifted 10 days ago  and in now plaits hanging under the log cabin veranda


The broad beans are about three feet tall and have loads of 7 inch pods .hopefully they will be harvestable before we go on holiday .


cast iron herb bed

Comfrey Hedge harvested three days ago ..for  me to eat & drink , , the compost heap as it makes a fantastic trace element source and a friends animals as it is a conditioner & cheap feed in the harvesting period that all of them love.

final stage of the landscaping completed about three weeks ago  .... found a decent brickie & his labourer brother who was not a con man .


This is the view & picture the brickie took from the log cabin roof to give a rough idea of how it's done .
 You wouldn't recognise this bed today there is very little free space in nit.
 

The new beds have been filled with loads of tomatoes , some water melons and some site members perennial kale cuttings which are not quite rooted w enough to post ( checked one this evening .)

Strong belief , triggers the mind to find the way ... Dyslexia just makes it that bit more amusing & interesting

cloddopper

  • Joined Jun 2013
  • South Wales .Carmarthenshire. SA18
Re: Carrot seed germinations this year.
« Reply #21 on: July 08, 2014, 11:59:03 pm »
"Silly me with the height for carrot flies - I thought it was 18"   "

The carrot fly tends to fly low to the ground and it is generally accepted that an 18 inch barrier will deter them.  However it is easier to cover the whole crop with a loose fitting fleece which leaves room for the crop to grow.

Radish belong to the cabbage family  and will not be tunneled by the carrot root fly larvae. However the cabbage root fly larvae are quite at home in a radish. Dont follow radish with cabbage as the cabbage root fly can decimate a cabbage crop if left untreated.

Regen

 The local hooligan carrot flies obviously haven't heard of the 18 inch fly to rule round here , they are also to be found dead almost six feet up on the sticky yellow insect catching patches hanging in my glasshouse .
Strong belief , triggers the mind to find the way ... Dyslexia just makes it that bit more amusing & interesting

cloddopper

  • Joined Jun 2013
  • South Wales .Carmarthenshire. SA18
Re: Carrot seed germinations this year.
« Reply #22 on: July 09, 2014, 12:19:35 am »
Sorry clodhoppers but I have had a few days away and agree that your garden sounds great. I guess you have also demonstrated that you have to do so much more planning and hardworking compared to us able body types who just plod a row , scatter seed and hope for the best.
Bye the bye - mice have worked their way along my rows of carrots so I have had to harvest and freeze those they left. The rabbits did benefit from half eaten carrots and the tops. :o

 In fact I reckon that had I been starting a garden from scratch on a 40 year old never dug plot full of weeds , brambles and all manner of pest I would have had to work a darn sight harder than I have for the square foot garden .
 Now the brick work is done that's it for seven or so years , all I need to do is take one out,  add compost and re sow /replant a different group crop. because of the replenishment there is never any nutrient & trace element deficiencies , pests are kept at a minimum there are very few weeds .

At seven years I may add more vermiculite and carry on as before for the bed will have a pan about 18 inches down which only the big lob worms will go through .
I also could excavate a bed ( 9 square feet ) by about 18 inches deep of fill a month at that point and scatter the contents over the lawns as a lawn feed /conditioner and make up some more filling .
Or I might be able to sell it by the bag full as raised bed fill for those who are only using a 6 inch boards as side walls .

The planning was a simple eXcel spread sheet that took me a while to do as I had to learn about eXcel in the first place and then try and remember it .

 Once I'd grouped the  seeds I had of the veg by brassica , roots  legumes and others then used eXcel to put each group in alphabetical order it was a simple case of entering these ordered groups in the index on the left side and copy out across the A3 sheet when to so , plant out and harvest .

 This winter I hope to move a bit further in eXcel and actually be able to take a complete line  of say " Early nante fly resistant carrots " and be able to select it so it reproduces entirely all events in the 52 weeks that I have made on the A3 plan .
 That way I can construct a new planner each year on a mask as easy as pie any crop I want in about an hour .

All my seeds are decanted as soon as I get them and put in air tight containers which are numbered and tied to the planners  index number . It took me 2 & 1/2  hours to add new seeds & remove used or way past the use by date  seeds on the eXcel sheet in January this year ..

 I have a list for  seed viabilities which indicates the length of viability of the seed if it's stored in a cool dark dry condition . I use this list when making up the seed container labels and the master seed holding list .
Again the power of eXcel is amazing it's so easy to do and alter once the main mask is made & eXcel work books from it are promogulated .
« Last Edit: July 09, 2014, 12:31:19 am by cloddopper »
Strong belief , triggers the mind to find the way ... Dyslexia just makes it that bit more amusing & interesting

pgkevet

  • Joined Jul 2011
Re: Carrot seed germinations this year.
« Reply #23 on: July 09, 2014, 09:42:03 am »
Very nice!

I did something similar when i extended and remodelled my clinic 20yrs ago. We built a brick wall around the garden for privacy and zero maintenance, paved the majority but had raised beds at two heights all around the walls with a central small raised lawn, a circular raised pond and fountain and a small shed with veranda.

the idea was to give a bit of grass for those few dogs that will not pee on paving and also soemwhere to stand and watch pets being trotted around. The raised beds in anticipation of my declining back issues were filled with shrubs and heathers for zero maintenance...none of the superb colours of clodhoppers lovely flower beds but the whole idea was to keep work down. One corner was given over to a wall of rememberance that slowly got covered in brass plaques as owners wished.

it was a good place to take a calm break, have a summer staff BBQ or host our annual open days. Raised beds rule.

 

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