Thursday, February 2, 2012

Thinning my Carrots


Though it may be sad - I do thin carrots
Carrots do not always come up evenly and can often be frustrating to grow because of the gaps in seedlings if spaced correctly without thinning. Additionally, some seedlings come up weak and need to be pulled out to keep from causing problems for future populations of carrots. Thinning enables strong, vigorous plants to continue growing into future generations while eliminating the less desirous ones. At times I do transplant thinned out seedlings, if I have room for them. Though root crops – such as carrots – do not adjust to transplanting as well as other crops, such as lettuce. If you want to thin and transplant and would like to keep plants from going into shock I would advise doing so on a cool, humid, or wind-free day. Though we can sometimes get attached to our seedlings, they often grow better as a group when we give them the space they need to thrive.



3 comments:

  1. There've been a lot of posts about this throughout the blogosphere lately and, gosh, it always does break my heart a little do to it.

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    Replies
    1. Yes- it does for me too. My growing carrots needed to be thinned again so yesterday I thinned out all the carrots that were not as purple on the top. The variety I am growing bears purple carrots and the stems tend to be a predictor of the color. My goal is to eventually select "Purple Dragon" to be a little more deep in color.

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  2. Good luck! I do love a deep purple in my carrots. (I really enjoy it when they have a few bloodorange veins of red, too.)

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