Growing carrots and beets in a raw (flooded) area - my method
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Growing beets and carrots in the Astrakhan region - I share my experience
4 reception for Nantes
Almost all articles are very helpful in gaining new knowledge in the field of crop production. So I wanted to share my method of growing carrots, and along with beets. Under these crops, I allocated a plot of 20 × 25 m in front of the house, which is flooded in spring, in high water, and dries out only at the end of June.
Someone may find this choice of place strange, but only to those who do not know one important local peculiarity: the flood waters saturate the soil not only with free moisture and organic fertilizers, but also with microelements.
And if we consider that in our country lands can not be called exhausted, then I do not use any fertilizers for cultivation of carrots and beets.
Well, except that to increase the sweetness of carrots once a season, somewhere in two months after the emergence of sprouting, under irrigation I inject wood ash.
See also: Cultivation of carrots - care for proven varieties and soil preparation. Planting carrots.
About your favorite varieties ...
By the way, I grow only one variety - Nantes, which is considered one of the best varieties of tableware, because this carrot contains up to 14% sugar. However, you have to pay for the taste with the poor keeping quality of root crops, although I will tell you below how I learned to deal with it. Since I’ve started talking about varieties, I’ll also mention about beets. Here, too, only one variety I like - Bordeaux. And all for the same reason: it contains 15-18% of sugar. Well, now about the method of cultivation. It can be divided into several stages.
Beds for carrots and beets
I do or make beds approximately half a meter in width and in length on all width of a site, ie. 20 m. At the same time I build on the sides of the sides, so that the water would keep on watering inside the garden.
By the way, they also have a natural bias - for irrigation I just lay a hose on their top point, and water flows by gravity over the entire surface of the beds.
Then I put in order the soil itself. Previously, I dug up, chopped and leveled with a shovel, and now I just loosen with garden forks, without turning the layers. At the same time I plug the forks to the full depth every 8-10 cm. And then I loosen the rakes and level them horizontally.
Abundantly fill the beds with water from the hose - until complete flooding.
After the water is absorbed without residue, I cut across the beds with an interval of 5-6 cm parallel to each other slots-grooves with a depth of 1,5-2 cm. Previously, I used the old hacksaw for wood, turning it upside down, and now I use a large metal spatula - it’s more convenient.
Sowing seeds in beds
As a result, I get about 400 slots. Then I take an empty jar from under the cosmetic cream (its main advantage is weight, otherwise it is difficult to hold light dishes in my hand, it constantly slips out) and fill it with 1/3 of carrot seeds.
I hold the jar in my left hand, and the right I do such movements: I take a pinch of seeds with my index finger and thumb and sow them in the furrows from left to right, while rotating my fingers clockwise and as though wiping the seeds.
The speed of rotation and movement is regulated depending on the desired density of sowing. Most importantly: with this method of sowing, the back (and especially the lower back) does not get tired at all, which is a great advantage for me personally.
Then I spread the surface of the beds with the same spatula. And after that three days, exclusively in the mornings, abundantly water all of the watering can. After three days there are shoots of carrots. Together with them, however, weeds also rise, which have to be removed manually, because I do not apply herbicides in principle. And this weeding is the only laborious operation in my method.
See also: How to grow carrots correctly - a few tips
Carrot storage is good advice
Why do I get carrots so quickly, I don’t know for sure. Probably, seeds are very comfortable in well-warmed up by the sun and literally saturated with water beds from top to bottom beds. Beets also like my way. Only the distance between the grooves-slots for her I already do 8-10 cm, and the seeds close up to a depth of 3-4 cm (the interval between them - 5-8 cm). And root crops grow up to 1 kg.
Yes, one more thing: carrots and beets are watered abundantly and often. As I mature, I squeeze the largest sprouts, pre-abundantly straining the planting. Diseases and pests have never been. And now, as promised, about the preservation of carrots.
To improve its keeping quality, root vegetables for the winter I leave under the film, spanned on wire arcs. I do the same with beets, but I keep it there until December, and then I clean everything, as it does not withstand the big frosts.
In other regions, you can try to partially leave the carrots under the film, pre-insulated with dry leaves, unless, of course, the mice attack the winter. At me while such was not: probably, in the summer growth of a population of rodents the water snakes and hedgehogs restrain. Therefore, I treat these creatures with great respect and never offend them.
The yield of carrots and beets is almost always high. Who asks - I sell the surplus, sometimes - just treat. I eat root vegetables raw and boiled, I squeeze the juice out of them with an ordinary centrifugal juicer. They say that a blender is easier and better, but I do not know, I have not tried it. I like it so much, because juices are made with nutritious pulp. And how many useful substances and vitamins are in them - you’ll get tired of listing!
In conclusion, I want to greet all gardeners-gardeners with excellent harvests, health and optimism.
By the way: Dried carrots
Trim the upper green parts of the carrot heads. Peel the roots themselves, cut into circles or thin strips, blanch in boiling water for about 20 minutes. Remove, lay on a baking sheet, dry in an oven at 75-80 °. Store in tightly closed jars in a dry place.
© Author: Irlan SATIKOV. with. Big Mogoy Astrakhan region
Below other entries on the topic "Dacha and garden - with their own hands"
- The simple secret of planting carrots
- How early to "wake up" carrot seeds - my method
- Carrot Seedlings - Tips for an Early Harvest
- Growing carrots on clay soil - planting and care (Tula region)
- What absolutely NOT to fertilize carrots!
- How to grow an early carrot (question-answer)
- "Lazy" way of growing even and large carrots
- Planting carrots in kissel - my testimonials
- How to grow a flat carrot - not horned and not clumsy (Bryansk region)
- Cultivation of carrots - care and feeding (Samara region)
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Unfortunately, many gardeners are extremely ineptly carousing carrots: often and little, not providing the necessary humidity (in the depth of 15-20 cm As a result, the root because of a lack of moisture dies off, and on root crops appears a lot of small roots.Knowing this, watering carrots rarely, but abundantly and evenly.If there is no rain once in 12-14 days (18-20 l / sq.m).
On a well-seasoned soil, you can get a good crop of root crops and without any additional dressing. But I prefer to give 2 top-dressing in July-August, in particular, foliar monophosphate of potassium (according to instructions) - carrots grow larger, tastier and better stored. After watering and fertilizing, I always loosen the soil and dig up the fodder-fruits: during growth, the tops are exposed and grow green in the light, forming a solanine which, when stored, penetrates into carrots and gives it bitterness.
One of the biggest problems in the cultivation of carrots was her annual disease with a brown leaf spot, which destroyed most of the leaves during the period of maximum rooting. Whatever I did, I used crop rotation, and raised the immunity of plants, and used biofungicides - nothing helped. And last year in July-August, three times with an interval of 2 a week, carrots treated the systemic fungicide "Skor" (recommended for the protection of fruit crops) - the result exceeded all expectations. The embroidered emerald green of the tops delighted the eye until the harvest itself. With 3.5 sq m harvested 73 kg of root crops Yields of almost 21 kg / sqm!
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Beetroot covered with a dark brown brownish crust with cracks. What with her?
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It's a scab. The disease manifests itself on any part of the root in the form of a rough, scabby, sometimes cracked, crust of dark brown color. It is more often observed on plants affected by root cane. Since there are no chemical measures to combat this beetroot disease, it is necessary to introduce overgrazed manure directly under the culture (otherwise the scab develops more strongly), and fresh - only under the precursor culture. To observe a crop rotation.
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My garden plot can not boast of good soil, mostly here is red clay. Carrots were especially bad at it. To achieve a decent harvest, had to make a lot of trial and error. I'll tell about them, so that fellow farmers can immediately come to the optimal option.
At first I created beds for carrots from humus and cultivated soil, but it did not lead to anything good: I got a crop of ugly root crops.
After that, I stopped adding fresh humus to the soil, simply digging up the already existing beds with a shovel and, accordingly, I got quite a hard ground. A lot of branched carrots grew (with two or more tails).
Having been tormented with different soil compositions and having thrown (literally) to the side a shovel, I decided to build beds using the Fokin plane cutter. Just loosened the earth, did not add compost, while adding 1 tbsp. l (per 1 m2) of superphosphate and urea. After sowing, she covered the carrots before germination - for about 10-15 days - with a light film. Then, twice a season, she loosened the aisles with a plane cutter and fed plants with potash and phosphorus fertilizers.
My efforts were rewarded: I received excellent carrots! Smooth, long and sweet. Cultivated a sort of dining room Nantes-4.
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Why do some carrots have sweet, but others do not? What is the secret, or is it all about the variety?
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Every year I grow a lot of carrots, as this is a very useful vegetable that saves me from various diseases.
Carrots like loose, moist soil. But I manage to come to the dacha only on weekends, and even less often. Therefore, earlier in the hot July days carrots began to wither, grew poorly, it decreased immunity, it often suffered from pests.
To prevent this, now I water it in a special way. At first it is good, at a sufficient depth, to shed the soil, and the next day I loosen it. I spread out between the rows of sheets of white paper moistened in water, and from above I place chamfered grass and onion husks. Under such mulch, the moisture is retained for a long time, and the scent of onion is scared away by pests.
Carrots are rich in volatile, which help resist infections and harmful microorganisms. Therefore, the orange root crop is my first assistant in the fight against colds. This is how I use it if someone in the family has a runny nose.
Pass the washed peeled carrots through a juicer (you can simply grind the root crops on a fine grater and filter the liquid through a triple layer of gauze). The common cold rinses the nasal cavity with water, and then I instill in it the diluted carrot juice. I dilute juice for children with water in a ratio of 1: 2, and for adults - 1: 1. You can use olive oil instead of water. The course is 4 times a day for a week. Soon there will be no trace of a runny nose!
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The best predecessors for carrots are onions, tomatoes, cucumbers, early vegetables, legumes. The site should be chosen with a flat or with a slight slope, in any case not waterlogged. The plant is photophilous. With a lack of light, the shoots are stretched. Especially good harvests of carrots give on sandy loamy and light loamy soils.
When preparing the ridges for digging, 4-5 kg / m 2 of manure, 20 g superfos-
fata and 10-15 g of potassium chloride. On fertile soils, you can do only with mineral fertilizers.
It is very important to prepare the seeds. They must be germinated at variable temperatures. When they are turned on, it is useful to withstand 2-3 days in the refrigerator at a temperature of about 0 deg., And dry it slightly before sowing, so as not to stick together. Sow - in moist soil to a depth of 2-3 see. At soil temperature + 5-8 deg. carrot seeds can not germinate 25-30 days, and at + 18-20 hail, shoots appear after a week.
For winter storage carrots are sown later. Sow the seeds better in a tape way in the 3-4 series at a distance of 18-20 cm from each other. The distance between the bands is 25-45, see the rows after seeding with seeds peeled with peat or humus.
Thin plants twice. For the first time, remove weak and disturbing shoots, for the second time (after 15-20 days), the final thinning is done, leaving 4-6 between plants.
TIP: During thinning, a sharp carrot smell appears on the site, which attracts a carrot fly. Therefore, thinning (as well as weeding the bed) is best in the evening, and pulled out carrot plants immediately in a bucket of cold water, then carried to a compost pile and covered with a layer of soil or sawdust.