Along with other crops, carrots is grown   in almost every suburban area. Raw carrots are considered one of the most important sources of vitamins and carotene, it enhances intestinal motility, helps get rid of anemia, and helps treat eye diseases. Include in this daily diet this delicious vegetable is recommended for adults and children.

Content

1. Choosing the right varieties of carrots  video
2. The most popular varieties
3. How to prepare the soil for planting  video
4. Garden Care
5. Harvest
6. What diseases and pests can affect plants during the growing season  video

Choosing the right varieties of carrots

Approaching the selection of carrot varieties for sowing should take into account the requirements of all your requirements: maturity, taste, yield and size, color, and long-term maturation. Since today there is a huge variety of carrots of domestic and foreign selection on sale, it can be difficult to make the right choice.

When buying carrot seeds, you can be guided by the following rules:

• for an early harvest, you should choose a vegetable with a short root crop
• varieties with long root crops require deep digging of the soil
• rounded root crops ripen faster, but do not give good yields
• more rational use of beds can be obtained by sowing varieties with short fruits
• if you have an idea to sell part of the crop, it is better to buy imported varieties - carrots will look more attractive: smooth, long, smooth
• for your own use, it is better to choose varieties with a bright color - they contain more carotene
• varieties of domestic selection are more hardy and adapted to extreme weather conditions, which are often observed in recent years.

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When buying seeds, you should plan how many carrots you will need for consumption in the summer and how many root crops you plan to stock for the winter. For the summer harvest, it is preferable to take early-ripening varieties that are suitable for use already 60-70 days after planting, mid-ripening varieties are suitable for autumn, the duration of their cultivation is about 100 days, the growing season of late varieties is 120 days more.

It is recommended to sow different varieties, as the early ones will not please you with a special yield, and they will not be stored well. Later ones are more reliable in storage, have more beneficial substances in their composition. To ensure an earlier harvest, carrot planting can be undertaken in the winter.

The most popular varieties

Some varieties of carrots are especially popular among gardeners and gardeners, these are:

1. Nantes, which has large root crops (about 150 g), is well stored in the winter, sweet and juicy.
2. Shantane - mid-season, slightly inferior to the taste of Nantes, the weight of the root crop is up to 250 grams, it can be grown on heavy soils.
3. Nandrin is also a representative of mid-ripening varieties, weight - up to 300 grams, very smooth and beautiful, has excellent taste.
4. Among the mid-season is the Samson variety with good yield, large fruit size and excellent taste.
5. Incomparable - medium-late variety, good in lying position, fruits are brightly colored, rich in carotene.
6. The most favorite variety of gardeners is the Queen of Autumn, a winter variety that is distinguished by good keeping quality, large root crops, juicy pulp, and is not prone to cracking.

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It is worth recalling that you should buy seeds either in online stores or in specialized stores that sell elite seeds.

Carrots of violet, yellow or white color look somewhat unusual, but it is no less useful, and violet varieties even help prevent the occurrence of cancer. Carrots are slightly duller to taste, and the aroma during heat treatment is brighter. To get the opportunity to prepare salads from multi-colored carrots, you can purchase Rainbow F1 seeds - from them carrots will grow white, yellow, orange and purple.

How to prepare the soil for planting

The timing of sowing seeds depends on the varieties: early sowing from April 20, medium - after 25, intended for winter storage - from June 10 to 15.

Under the garden, you should choose a site with loose, even sandy soil - a heavy one will impede the growth and normal development of the root crop. You can not plant carrots in a swampy area - it will rot, insufficient soil moisture will make root crops stiff.

You can plant a carrot after all vegetable crops except salad and parsley. The earth should be dug up in the autumn, mineral fertilizers should be preferred, fresh manure is not recommended - it increases the acidity of the soil, which is undesirable for carrots. Mineral fertilizers should be applied a couple of weeks before sowing seeds.

Before sowing, the seeds should be: soak for a couple of hours in warm water, wind up to a soft moistened rag, leave to swell at room temperature, when the seeds swell and begin to germinate, they are placed in the refrigerator for hardening.

Furrows are made on the bed - the distance between them is 20-25 cm, the depth is 2-2.5 cm. First they are watered with water, then the seeds are sown - at a distance of 1-2 cm from each other and covered with soil. The process of emergence of shoots will be accelerated by a film or agrofibre stretched over the garden bed.

At first, sowing is often watered, after emergence - once or twice a week. After the formation of the first leaf, the seedlings are thinned out, while removing plants smaller and weaker. The distance between the left plants is not less than 2-3 cm.

Garden Care

Under the beds with carrots, it is better to select a site clean of weeds, but when they appear, you will have to carefully pluck them. Another option is to use herbicides for carrots, they are applied after a week after sowing, in accordance with the instructions.

Proper watering of carrots implies:

1. systematic moistening of beds after emergence, in dry weather - twice a week
2. you need to water their watering can, until the soil gets completely wet
3. as root crops grow, watering is reduced to 1 time per week, while increasing the amount of water
4. since August, watering the beds is possible only in case of severe drought.

After each rain or watering, loosen the soil and remove weeds. Top dressing is performed no more than once a month, you can use infused compost or manure, the Baikal preparation.

Harvest

In order for the crop to retain its juiciness for a long period, taste and brightness should be removed from the beds in a timely manner. Harvesting time depends on the variety and sowing time. Carrots and beets intended for winter storage are harvested in early October, when the leaves turn yellow. In order not to damage the root crops, you will first need to dig the ground with a garden fork or a shovel, then carefully remove the carrots. It is better to cut the tops immediately, along the line of the eyes, to prevent the possibility of germination.

What diseases and pests can affect plants during the growing season

Any disease is easier to prevent than to cure. Therefore, if in previous years any plant diseases were noticed, or there were cases of pest attacks on them, it is best to adhere to these simple rules when planting:

1. be sure to change the plants planted on the same bed, i.e. observe crop rotation, at least once every couple of years,
2. remember: the best carrots are those that are resistant to the most common diseases in your area,
3. to increase the immunity of plants, you can spray them with a solution of Baikal,
4. in June it is advisable to treat the beds with immunocytophytes,
5. watering should be carried out with warm water,
6. for the year before planting carrots, you should lime the area, this will remove the excessive acidity of the soil, before sowing the seeds should be disinfected with a solution of potassium permanganate,
7. to prevent plant diseases, they can be sprayed with Fitosporin, Alirin, Trichodermin, Gamair and others.

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The most common diseases of carrots are damage by putrefactive bacteria.

Often meets   dry rot   or phomosis, the symptoms of which are brown spots with dark dots on the leaves of plants and root crops. Its occurrence can be prevented by deep plowing, seed treatment, crop rotation, fertilizer-rich fertilizers.

White rot   resembles a cotton layer under which there is mucus or compacted black sclerotia. Appears in case of violation of storage technologies, with high soil moisture. Effective methods of combating the disease: seed shifts, soil enrichment with potash fertilizers, thorough destruction of the tops of leaves in autumn.

Similar methods of struggle will help get rid of black rot, manifested by brown leaves on young plants.

Bacteriosis   manifested in the appearance of yellow spots on the tops and in its subsequent drying. When revealing diseased plants, they should be immediately removed from the garden, and the disease can be prevented by frequent alternation of crops.

Not only diseases, but also pests such as mice, slugs, a bear, a scoop, carrot flies can threaten the carrot harvest.

From a massive attack on crops carrot flies, the larvae of which gnaw the passages to the very core in the root crop, planting onions with a mixture of onions and carrots on one bed can help; With a large number of pests, it will be necessary to use insecticides, such as Intavir, Actellik, Fas, etc.

Completely destroys the crop may invasion carrot leaf   - a pest that is very dangerous for the plant, which settles on the tops, lays eggs from which the larvae are soon hatched. The insect harms the plant at each phase of its development, causes curly and wilted leaves. The root crops of the affected plant become stiff, stop growing. Fighting the leaf cover will require treatment of plants at the very beginning of summer by Intavir or Actellik, but treatment should not be carried out more than two times.

Winter scoop   can bite plant leaves and damage fruits. To scare away the pest, you can use decoctions that are harmless to people and animals, decoctions of burdock leaves, chamomile, yarrow, or use pyrethroid remedies.

Root crops can also be damaged. bare slugswhich most live on too moist soils. Especially numerous of their colonies are formed in rainy summers. To combat slugs, you can use folk methods: draining the sites, sprinkling the slugs with a mixture of potassium salt with hydrated lime and ash, spraying the places of accumulation of slugs with 10% aqueous salt solution, treating the site with superphosphate.

Author: Sergey and Svetlana Khuentsov

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