How Many Carrots Grow From One Seed? Carrots are one of the most popular root vegetables grown in the world. It has been grown for centuries as a medicinal herb. However, it wasn’t until the middle ages that the carrot was developed into a food crop with the first carrots being yellow in color. The familiar orange varieties were not developed until much later.
A single packet of carrots (300) can produce prolific crops because each individual seed planted produces a single carrot. The size of the carrot produced is dependant upon the specific variety and the length of time the carrot spends in the garden. It is possible to produce enormous carrots with a world record being over six metres long, however, it is generally advisable to pick the carrots when they are young.
When growing carrots it is recommended that seeds be sown direct as disturbing by transplanting them often results in carrots becoming deformed. However, getting the carrots to germinate can be tricky and gardeners often complain about patchy germination.
Tricks To Getting Carrots To Germinate
To germinate carrot seeds successfully requires the seed to be moist throughout the germination period which is notoriously long for carrots. This can make them difficult to germinate because they are small seeds that need to be planted in a relatively shallow furrow of around half an inch in depth.
The shallow sowing means that the seed can dry out readily, particularly in warmer weather, however, there are a few tricks that help improve the success rate. The first is to generally avoid planting seeds in the warmer months of the year. The second common strategy is to presoak the seeds. This can be done in a number of different ways to read more about the best way to do this click here.
Looking After Carrots
Carrots are generally easy to look after they just require regular watering as allowing them to dry out once the plant has become established can result in the carrot splitting. The other maintenance job is thinning out the carrots, as most gardeners, including myself, tend to sow seeds too thickly which results in overcrowding.
This requires the carrots to be thinned regularly as they increase in size, however, this is not all bad as it provides the opportunity for the harvesting of baby carrots. As winter approaches carrots may be left in the ground and dug up as required.
The only exception to this occurs in cases where the ground freezes solid or the soil is extremely boggy. In these cases, carrots can be lifted and stored in damp sand in a cool dark location. In these conditions carrots last for months.
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