"OCD-Me"!!!!

Okay, the carrots are up to around 2" tall now. The hybrids (Adana and Merida) "appear" to be outperforming the open-pollinated Rodelika which would make sense that they are.

Anybody want to share their thinning method? Currently I'm thinking of doing a thumb-width thinning...whatever fits between my thumb and side of my finger gets pulled...then move over one seedling, pull a thumb-width, move over one seedling, rinse and repeat...aiming to leave the bigger plants. Then in about 3-4 weeks come back and thin them out to 3 inches apart.

I've got plenty of skips, especially in the Rodelika....has anybody had much luck transplanting these small plants? Seems like it would be really "iffy" and probably kinda aggravating to do, but...it could help fill some gaps in. I might just take a large knife and make some deep but narrow slits/trenches and drop some of the thinnings in them and press the slit/trench back together. The rest of the thinnings I'll bury to reduce carrot flies from being attracted. I've also heard its a good idea to water down the thinned carrots good after thinning for the same reason...helps wash away the carrot smell (and I imagine it helps settle in any roots that get disturbed by the thinning, too).

Here's what I'm looking at:


As for the three different varieties, so far the Adana are filling the row in the best. I've got a few more skips in the Merida row and definitely more skips in the Rodelika row. But, "proof's in the pudding"...I'll wait to pass judgement until I taste them.

I am bad at thinning.
Might as well try replanting extras tho.

Thanks for the feedback, Sally. It took me 2-1/2 hours to thin the 100' row (50' double row) of carrots. I'll post more later.

I've done it (back when I was much younger, I guess) but transplanting carrot thinnings is pretty iffy - you need to make sure the roots are straight when you plant them, otherwise the carrots become quite a mess.

I started around 11:00am thinning the more-or-less 100' row of carrots yesterday. Using kerosene lanterns I managed to finish around 4am this morning...

Nah, just kiddin'!!! But, it did take me 2-1/2 hours to thin them. Can you imagine "OCD-Me" sitting on the ground...kneeling on the ground...laying prone on the ground...trying to decide "Do I pull that one or this one? Which one should I pull? Which one should I let live?"? It was a harrowing experience I tell ya!!!!

First I started out with a pair of scissors...old "garden" scissors that didn't "quiet" close at the tip. That worked about as good as a politician. So, I ran inside and "borrowed" a pair of my wife's scissors. They made a world of difference...but, terrible for "OCD-Me" due to having to oh so carefully move the blades in among the seedlings and snip the right ones... So, it boiled down to Neanderthal "pluckin'". Pulling worked much, much better...for me. YMMV. One thing I found out is that if you have a nice looking seedling and you want to pull adjacent seedlings up use the right hand if the doomed seedlings are on the right side and the left hand if they're on the left side...much more control on exactly pulling what you want to pull. Don't worry about asking me how I know this...I think you've got it figured out.

The Adana F1s was the best stand so I'll be showing it a lot, the Rodelikas were more spotty. Anyhow, let the show begin!!!!!!

Here's what we started with (I'm pretty sure these are Adana)...


The far right side of the front row shows how thick they were before thinning. After thinning...


Row of Adana F1. The right side has been thinned, the left side hasn't been thinned yet...


After I got through thinning them I gave them a good soaking with the shower nozzle to help settle the soil back around the remaining seedlings and then I turned the drip on for a while for some deeper soaking...


I did re-plant some of the plants that I pulled up. I found out that if you want to do this you need to have a small bottle of water handy to immediately water the re-planted carrots with. I figured I'd just water them after I got through thinning...by then the ones I had planted early on were severely wilted, though the latter ones looked okay. A little while after watering, most of the wilted ones seemed to be responding to the water....we'll just have to wait and see on them. Most of the re-plants were Rodelikas being as there were more skips in those so I had more empty spots to plant in. I really didn't replant *that* many, though...it was more of an experiment I guess...probably replanted 20-30 of them. One thing I did note was that it seemed that though the Rodelikas (OP) had the worst germination, took longer to germinate, and the rows looked more sparse...the actual roots on lots of them were the largest I encountered out of the three varieties.

I'm also going to reassess the density to plant carrot seeds at. It seemed the least dense recommendation was three seeds per inch. I sorta/kinda tried to stick with that as I planted. I'm going to stretch that out a tad the next time I plant carrots. Maybe it's just "OCD-Me" but the amount of seedlings that I pulled just seemed like such a waste. Naturally, hand-planting seeds this small at a specific rate is rather "subjective", too say the least, but I'll go by memory of this planting and try to spread the seeds out a tad more the next time.

Using seed-tape could be a very good idea *if* you can find the variety that you want in seed-tape form. I specifically sought carrots said to mature to between six and eight inches...and wanted to try my hand at hand planting, anyhow. I'll probably continue with loose seed...and plant the seeds a little more thinly in the row. I inquired of one seed seller about the length and spacing of the seeds. Here is their response:

Your question: How long are the seed tape for these carrots and what is the seed spacing? Thanks!

Answer: 5 meters (16 feet, 5 inches). The seeds are perfectly spaced to eliminate the need for thinning. We hope this answers your question.

"...perfectly spaced to eliminate the need for thinning." 1-1/2"? 2"? 3"? 4"? 12"?(hey, that would definitely eliminate thinning! ). There's several spacing suggestions from different places...I'd really like to know what the *perfect* one is. I replied with the question of what that perfect spacing is...and never received a response. This is from a popular seed vendor, which I've used in the past. No biggie, but...

Anyhow, I bagged up all the thinnings and tossed them. George inspected them for me before I tossed them and he seemed to walk away in disgust...he thought it was some type of treat in the bucket.


Amazing how many of those little seedlings I pulled...when I finally stood up after sitting/kneeling for those 2-1/2 hours I was stumbling like a drunk man...so the logical things was to go get a beer.

Weedwhacker said: I've done it (back when I was much younger, I guess) but transplanting carrot thinnings is pretty iffy - you need to make sure the roots are straight when you plant them, otherwise the carrots become quite a mess.

Sandy, the seedlings that I replanted I used a blade on those "cast aside" scissors to make a narrow slit for the carrot seedlings to drop into...then squeezed the soil in on them and pressed the ground down between them. We'll see...nothing was growing in those spots, anyhow, so...nothing ventured nothing gained....YMMV....check's in the mail...more feed for the deer....etc., etc.,...

Your carrots are looking great, Ed - I think you are going to have a bumper crop!

Maybe I will, Sandy! Of course, I haven't been out to the garden today, yet. Bambi and her sidekick may have come back for a midnight snack!!!

They really do like carrots (and beets); one year, quite some time ago, when we still had dogs and only had a 3' high "rabbit fence' around the garden because the deer were spooked away by the dogs, the deer did get in during the night in the late fall, where I still had some carrots and beets needing to be harvested - the garden looked like it had been plowed by the time they were done with it!

You could consider putting some "floating row cover" over the carrots.

I just did the "back of the arm to the electric fence" test. I can firmly say...do not buy a Parmak 12v fence charger. The one I bought back in 2017 would have made me jump...HIGH. I've tested it directly across the terminals and barely get 7kv...sometimes. The specifications that they advertise is that it puts out 13.5kv...it comes nowhere close to doing that...and I had one shipped in to replace this one and *it* wasn't as good as this new one. This new design useless unless you're just wanting to keep a hamster inside a fence or something...it might work on a guinea pig, but I doubt it.

I was going to post some about the carrots and saw my mention of the Parmak 12v fence charger and I want to update that. I'm still not overjoyed with this fence charger as it falls far below the published specifications for this charger, but it's better than I thought. I had a long conversation with some beekeepers about the fence, doing all kinds of tests including "touch" tests. Once I got the nerve up I touched the fence line to test it out. All I felt was a light pulsing electrical shock, but nothing bad. I actually thought about taking my shirt off and leaning back against the fence for some electroshock therapy on my old carcass, maybe good for the back but not for keeping deer out of the garden.

I kept working with the fence... I added another ground rod for a total of two but it didn't make any difference in the "touch test". I finally screwed up enough courage to do the ultimate "touch test"....disconnect the fence from the charger and touch the two terminals of the charger with my fingers!!! It wasn't bad at all. THEN...I touched them at the same time ..........

Yeah, it was a tad more than the earlier "tingle" of electricity that I'd felt!!!! So, I kept investigating...got ahold of a digital meter...kept snooping around. Finally, my solidified gray matter managed to eek out to me to check the main connection where the heavy wire coming from the positive terminal tied into the fence wires. *Somebody*, seven years ago tied all this polywire into a birdnest knot...and a couple of years later added replacement polywire on top of that!!!! Dumb...I don't know who did that!!!???

Anyhow, I tore all of that apart and replaced it with some galvanized wire at the junction and ran a galv wire down as the jumper there at the charger connection...nice and neat. I had checked the fence earlier and it was only reading around 3kv. After the wire cleanup....9.5kv!!!!! Not near the 13.5kv that the Parmak is advertised as having, but enough to dissuade a deer from crawling through. Anyhow, I just wanted to clarify that the fence problem was mostly "user error", though the charger is less than advertised. And....NO!...I will not be doing "touch test" this time to the terminals nor a fence touch test!!!!! I'm good!

Now with the electric fence stuff out of the way...

I planted the Adana F1 carrots on 10/06/2024. They are stated on a couple of vendors' websites as being 58 days to maturity, 6-7 inches long at maturity, and 1 to 1-1/2 inches in diameter at maturity. They seem to be growing well, and I'll be doing a final thinning after Christmas...and I wasn't really expecting them to mature until maybe late February or early March. What I'm wondering about is...does the DTM increase when growing them through the winter? Below is a photo taken on 12/14/2024...a week past the 58-day mark:

I guess yes, because you have less daylight hours per day

I agree with Sally; DTM is at best an approximation, and with the colder weather and less daylight it seems highly likely that growth would be slower.

Happy Winter Solstice!

So basically the sellers are stating DTM for northern summer growers...

Btw, I just pulled up a website while searching for "growing carrots in south alabama". It actually came up rather high on the results. Stupid me has carrots outside and it's been getting down into the 30's and even upper 20's a few nights...stupid me!!!! I guess I probably need to go pull them up being as it's going back down into the upper 20's tonight. For some *really* enlightening reading ...here ya go: https://thegardeningdad.com/be...

It's always been where you needed to use common sense with things that you read on the Internet but I really think that AI is going to pollute the "information highway" severely for years to come.

A lot of gloom and doom there about growing carrots... seedlings are probably more sensitive, but more mature carrots will certainly survive freezing weather; I've dug them out of the snow at times in the past. And in zones a bit warmer than mine carrots can be left in the ground all winter, mulched with a nice layer of straw. You could put a "low tunnel" of PVC pipes and "floating row cover" (Reemay, Agribon, whatever) over your carrots to protect them from unexpected frost, Ed.

Yeah, I think that's just a click-bait website. It seems I can replace "alabama" in my search string and about the same thing comes up for other states.

As for my carrots...a low of 28F is forecast for tonight with a 31F for tomorrow night and then warming back up....again...up to 70F after Christmas. Anyhow, I'll just wait and see how they handle it...probably better than I will. I think this winter I've been colder than any other winter...can't be my age as I'm only 28...

Intheswamp said: Stupid me has carrots outside and it's been getting down into the 30's and even upper 20's a few nights...stupid me!!!! I guess I probably need to go pull them up being as it's going back down into the upper 20's tonight.

Why?
Even up in Yankee land they leave carrots in the ground all winter...
Up there, they cover the bed with hay or straw or whatever handy mulch to keep the soil from freezing.

Down here?
Mulch is unnecessary...
I've been planting carrot seed...

stone said: Why?
Even up in Yankee land they leave carrots in the ground all winter...
Up there, they cover the bed with hay or straw or whatever handy mulch to keep the soil from freezing.

Down here?
Mulch is unnecessary...
I've been planting carrot seed...

There was a lump of sarcasm in my statement, stone.

But, looking at things we may have gotten as low as 25F last night. Heavy frost this morning.