Kids &... Carrots

Yes, its true carrots really can be this exciting!

Carrots are one of the vegetables that most children will eat without too much hassle, but one that can sometimes be a bit of a pain to grow. While it would be wrong to let kids think things always turn out perfectly, here's a couple of tips to hopefully avoid total disaster!

Temperature
Carrots need reasonably warm soil to germinate so don't sow outside too early in the year or nothing will come up! Similarly don't sow too late - and sowings from mid August onwards are probably best started under cloches.

Starting In Modules?
This is probably one best avoided - young carrots have such a weak root that you will more than likely damage it causing odd shaped roots.

Soil
Don't grow carrots in overly fertile ground otherwise you'll end up with fangy roots; similarly really heavy soils will cause problems. A fine light soil is perfect. If you can't achieve this grow dumpy round varieties like Paris Market Atlas or grow in tubs of old grow bag compost.

Sowing
The seed is tiny but don't let that put off young hands. Sow in 2cm deep drills as finely as possible - a seed or two every few centimetres would be great. Sow in rows 15cm - 20cm apart. Cover the seed and water in and keep moist. (repeat sow through the late Spring & Summer)

Thinning
Unless really tight in the row don't be in too much of a hurry to thin - let them get a little bigger as you will do less damage and then you can eat the thinnings.

Carrot Fly
Carrot fly can be devastating but you can easily thwart them so don't panic! The critical things to remember is carrot fly are attracted by smell, so whenever you touch the foliage (thinning, hoeing, lifting or whatever) cover up the smell by watering down the row with something like a garlic solution. Or grow your carrots between smelly crops like garlic and onions. Whatever you do, whenever you thin carrots always take the thinnings away - and when you lift always take the tops away - don't just twist them off and drop them on the floor! Another trick is carrot fly can't fly very high so you can always put a fence (about 60cm high) around your carrots - or grow them in raised beds. Varieties like Resistafly do have some resistance to Carrot Fly - but still be careful!

Storage
Leave your carrots in the ground and harvest as you need. They will keep much better that way even in the Winter - but you might want to straw over the ground to stop the frost getting the tops of them.

For some early Spring carrots, or Winter 'new season' carrots sow some seed into tubs of old grow bag compost or similar and grow in the greenhouse.

So hopefully with those few tips you shouldn't have complete failure!

If carrots are something you struggle to get your children to eat - try something a bit different such as ball shaped varieties like Paris Market Atlas or different coloured varieties such as Atomic Red, Cosmic Purple or Solar Red.