Carrot
Each of us on average annually consumes about 5 kg of carrots per year. Carrots occupies a significant place in the diet primarily as an important source of carotene, provitamin A. Carotel( the so-called early varieties of carrots) can be sown in the garden already late in the fall for spring harvesting, to accelerate the growth of crops covered with film. In February and April, they sow late kinds of carrots.
It slowly rises, and so with it you can grow, for example, radish. Grow early varieties of carrots "Nantes", "Carol", "Ruby", from imported seeds - the late carrot "Zino", as well as the variety "Larosa".
Carrots contain about 87% water, a lot of carotene( up to 7 mg%), B vitamins, about 10 mg% of vitamin C, vitamins K, PP and others. It contains essential oil, pectin, sugars, lecithin, minerals,and especially calcium, sodium, potassium, phosphorus, magnesium. On the useful properties of carrots, look here.
When growing carrots, you must remember that she loves a fairly well-lit place, you do not need to apply a lot of nitrogen fertilizers to the soil, you need to plant carrots in the beds for the third or fourth year after fertilizing the soil with manure, in which an undesirable excess of nitrates.
Carrot juice containing essential oil used to be used against parasitic worms( worms, ascarids).Carrot juice has a good effect on the eyes, and according to some authors, it hinders the development of cancer. Carrot juice is also a diuretic, improves the health status of intestinal and gastric diseases. This juice occupies a prominent place in the hepatic and biliary diet.
Carrots should be consumed frequently, its recommended daily dose is 50-100 g, but it is more useful to eat with a small amount of fat to better absorb carotene in the digestive tract, while carrots should be grated on a fine grater. Carrots can be combined with a grated apple, added to salads of sauerkraut and fresh cabbage, salad with lemon, mayonnaise with celery, onions and lemon, can be used as a paste for cottage cheese. Carrots are used in soups, salads, served as a garnish. Very good carrots complement meat and flour dishes. Carrots can be boiled, canned, poured with a sweet-sour marinade or added to other canned vegetable mixes with cucumbers, onions. The sterilized lettuce favorite in Russia consists of three parts of shredded cabbage and one part of carotee, one part of onion and one part of red sweet pepper in a sweet-sour marinade. This salad is prepared in the autumn, when there is enough cabbage and autumn carrots.
This is one of the most loved and common roots. Carrots belong to the family of umbrella( celery).Modern varieties of carrots come from the Mediterranean.
What does carrot like? Sand, loose, rich in organic, but not too greasy soil, prefers a lit place, but tolerates and with a slight shading. It grows better on neutral soil, but can also grow on a weakly acidic soil.
What does not love carrots? Dense or compacted after rain and soil irrigation, as its root system needs a lot of oxygen, especially in the early stage. In a dense soil, the root crop melts. Root carrots are very sensitive to the homogeneity of the soil structure. Even if the central stem stumbles into a pebble during growth, the root will curl or bifurcate. If the soil layers are not homogeneous in their structure, the root crop has constrictions.
Carrots do not like acidic soils, a lot of mineral fertilizers, from which the root crop becomes woody and tasteless. Under the carrots you can not make fresh organic matter, let alone fresh or badly brewed manure - it will rot in the soil or during storage. In addition, with excess doses of nitrogen in any form, the carrots are branching. You can not apply carrots to fertilizers containing chlorine( potassium chloride or potassium salt) - it will also branch or curl the root crop.
You can not make carrots in the year of planting lime - the carrot will become a five-tailed or seven-tailed. Even if the ash is applied directly when sowing seeds, the root crops will become multi-tailed. When deoxidizing the soil for carrots, it is better to use dolomite flour or chalk, which should be taken from the fall.
Selection of variety
There are several types of carrot, differing in shape, size, color, sugar content.
From early varieties it is necessary to note the Parisian caroton - it is round, like a radish, sweet, the earliest( about 65-70days after germination), but poorly stored carrots. The length of the fruit is only 3-5 cm.
Amsterdam is long, smooth, thin, cylindrical, with a very small core, the length of the fruit varies from 15 to 40 cm. As a rule, sweet, early, but poorly stored. This sortotypes include all the favorite carrots Minocor - mid-day( 80-90 days), as well as ABC, Parmeks.
Nantes - cylindrical, slightly narrowed towards the end, medium maturity( about 100-110 days), suitable for storage. Among our varieties are also widely distributed peasant women, Vitamin, Karlen, Losinoostrovskaya, and also Altai shortened, Moscow winter( about 120 days).
Of the late varieties( 160 days), the most widely spread Vita Longa and Pharaoh. Flakke - with a long cylindrical root, late maturing( up to 150 days) - intended specifically for long-term storage( fruit length about 20 cm).This variety also belongs to the Red Giant variety. Shantane is also suitable for storage - a short-bodied, with a small heart, conical shape( fruit length about 15 cm).
The earliest hybrids( 90 days) - Napoli P, Newgeit F1, Navarino F1, Peasant.
Early maturing hybrids( 100 to 110 days) - Nandrin F1, Niagara F1, Bremen F1, Newton F1, Newburgh F1, Nigel F1, Royal F1, Red Coed F1, Denver F1.
Mid-late hybrids( up to 120 days) - Napa, Nevis, Bangor F1, Jaguar F1, Mars F1, Cordoba F1, Cascade F1.
Late for storage( 130-140 days) - Narbonne F1, Bristol F1, Beldda F1, Kazan F1, Flaccor F1, Flakino F1, Camaran F1, Fontana F1, Kathmandu F1.
Duration of sowing
Carrots - a plant cold-resistant, at all stages of development it easily tolerates frosts to -5. ..- 6 degrees, so it is better to sow as early as possible. For the North-West, the best time for sowing is the end of April. In regions with a continental climate, it can be sown under the winter. In the same place where thaws often occur in the winter, it is better to plant carrots in March, having prepared beds for sowing since autumn.
Carrots can be sown already at a temperature of 5 degrees and even lower. However, the best temperature for shoots is 13 degrees, in spite of the fact that carrot seeds, like all cold-resistant crops, puck out at 4, and rise at 6 degrees.
Early carrot cultures avoid the attack of the umbrella leaf block.
However, you can do and late crops( in early June - for the North-West), which also allows you to get away from the leaf block. But if at this time the temperature will exceed 22 degrees, the development of carrots will become slow, and the root crop will form rough.
Soil preparation
It is better to sow carrots on 15-20 cm heights. The soil should not only be dug to a depth of at least 20 cm( and even better 30-40 cm) from the autumn, choosing stones from it, but even sifting it. It is even better to make a garden bed of a mixture of peat( or sawdust, pine needles) and sifted sand for carrots. For each bucket of peat, take a half-bucket of sand and add a liter of ash. On such soil, carrots will grow exceptionally 3-4 years in a row. First, there is no weed seed in it;secondly, it is saturated with air. It will take only an additional annual addition of chlorine-free potassium for spring preseeding of the soil( 1/2 cup per running meter).
You can sow carrots in Y-shaped grooves 20 cm deep, made right in the soil( without ridges).Furrows are made at a distance of 20 cm from each other and fill them with the same mixture of peat and sand, as mentioned above. These furrows make grooves only 1 cm deep and are sown in them with carrot seeds. Then the soil is leveled. When sowing carrots under winter or in March, the seeds are embedded in the soil a bit deeper, 2 cm. Carrots are sown in moist soil. Seedlings appear after 7-20 days. Before the emergence of seedlings, the bed should not be watered, but to prevent the seeds from drying out in the upper layer of the soil in dry or windy weather, the beds should be covered with a film after sowing, which must be removed immediately, as soon as the shoots appear.
Slow the emergence of shoots of carrots essential oils contained in its seeds.
There is a recommendation for accelerating the emergence of carrots - pre-soak seeds before sowing in running water for a day to wash out the ethereal
oils. This technique improves the germination of carrots and accelerates the emergence of seedlings, but there is another side to it. First, weak plants also appear, while essential oils appear to them will not allow. Secondly, potassium is washed out of the seeds, which ultimately has a bad effect on the quality of root crops. It is much better to use another method: pour carrot seeds into a tissue bag, put it under a stream of hot water for half an hour.
I sow the carrot seeds together with the dust fraction of the AVA fertilizer: 1 teaspoon of seeds I take 1 tsp of fertilizer and 1/2 cup of fine sand or rubbing off of spilled tea or coffee. I stir it and sow it as if it were a salt with this mixture prepared groove. I level the soil and press the board.
With this sowing carrots do not thicken, and all summer is not required to do any feeding, except for a single watering infusion of weeds in the first time after emergence.
In an early stage, carrots are easily muffled by weeds, do not tolerate deep loosening and weeding, as its thin, tender, sucking rootlets are easily damaged, and the future root crop is bent. For the same reason, the first thinning in stage 1 -2 of this leaflet should not be done, tearing out excess plants, but it is necessary to carefully trim them with manicure scissors according to the soil level. At the first thinning between the plants, a distance of 1.5-2 cm is left.
With the second thinning, the distance between root crops can be kept at 5-6 cm and only for large-berry varieties the distance between the roots in the rows is about 10 cm, and between rows - up to 15-20 cm. With the second thinning, carrots can be pulled and the plants taken out together with the tops in soups and salads. The most common mistake - belated, especially the first thinning of carrots - good roots do not have to wait.
If you are not previously released( rows of weeds, they will get up earlier than carrots and weeding will be difficult because carrot rows are not yet visible. To indicate the rows of carrots, it is necessary, when sowing, to add to the seeds some seeds of another culture that quicklyfor example, lettuce or radish, their shoots will be marked by furrows of carrots, and weeds can be removed in the inter-row without fear of damaging the carrots. We need not pick up the weeds, but cut them according to the soil level.too close to the rows of carrots
If carrot shoots are immediately covered with lutrasil or other non-woven material and watered beds right on the sinkhole, then no pests of your carrots are scary. Removable shelter before harvesting itself, when the second carrot fly expires.
Smallthe amount of carrots can be grown very early by sowing it at the film itself( or near the glass) in a greenhouse in a row. It will not interfere with greenhouse plants, since they are planted at 20-25 cm from the film or glass. Light carrots are enough even under the canopy of greenhouse plants.
Top dressing and watering
The first top dressing is done simultaneously with the first thinning( if you did not sow carrots together with AVA).It is best to use the infusion of weeds( diluted in water in a ratio of 1: 5), in which should be added potassium, not containing chlorine( sulphate or potassium carbonate).It is enough to add 1-2 st.spoons of potassium fertilizer on a bucket of weed solution. Carrots are potassium. Her agronomist 38, and the balance 34: 13: 53. Therefore, with the second thinning in the stage of the 5th-6th present sheet, it should again be supplemented with potassium, giving Z.spoons of fertilizer per 10 liters of water( again, if you sowed without AVA).
In carrots, carrots need only the first stage of growth, before the second thinning. In the future, carrots should not be watered even in dry weather. With an excess of moisture, it forms a hairy root or the root crop begins to crack. Such carrots are not stored, it immediately needs to be allowed for processing for winter billets. Cracking of root crops can cause excessive amounts of nitrogen to be introduced into the soil. Often gardeners from the heart water the carrots with infusion of weeds, and then marvel, why the root crops cracked.
Carrots should be cleaned after the first freezing, because it must necessarily pass the stage of natural cooling. If you are forced to harvest carrots before freezing, then be sure to leave it for a day in the fridge, otherwise the aboveground part will continue to grow, and the root will fade.
Diseases and pests of
The main pest of carrots is umbelliferous leaf block, hibernating on coniferous cultures. It attacks carrots, dill, parsley, less often celery, in the early spring, as soon as the air temperature rises to 7-8 degrees Celsius. On the carrot, a leaf block attacks already in the stage 1 -2 leaves, lays the larva inside the rosette of the leaves. The larva drains the juice from the young leaves, which causes them to twist. Of such damaged plants, good root crops can not be obtained, they should be removed immediately. The most reasonable means of combating the leaf block is early or, conversely, late( early June) planting time. But then there is the danger of an attack of a spring fly. The easiest way is to cover carrot crops with lutrasil. Sometimes it is recommended to water them with a solution of kerosene or sprinkle with mothball. This should not be done: firstly, the root crops will have these smells, and secondly, kerosene and naphthalene are strong carcinogens, and they do not need anything to our body.
Carrot fly flies twice, the first - during cherry blossoms, the second - from the end of July to the end of August.
The summer fly flies at the same time as the butterfly whiting, so, as soon as the noticeable, white, butterfly-cabbage whiskers, immediately cover the carrot crops with lutrasil. Sometimes it is recommended to fill carrot spacing with needle needles or ash, plant marigolds to disorient the pest or plant onions between the rows of carrots. Voles, wireworms and caterpillars of different scoops can significantly damage crops. A nematode can also depress carrots. A common technique - the planting of marigolds in the aisles - only disorients the fly, but does not protect the nematode indirect. But the alternation of crops of carrots( or any other culture) with the planting of marigolds for the whole season - the reception is successful. The nematode, though penetrating into the marigolds, loses the opportunity to reproduce, and therefore next year such a bed from the nematodes is free.
Of the most unpleasant diseases - phomosis. This is the root rot, which most often affects it during storage. Spores of the fungus live in the soil for 3-4 years, so if the disease was, then the carrots on this place should not be planted for 4 years. Fomosis causes excess nitrogen. Usually this happens after the introduction of fresh manure. Avoiding the disease is helped by increased doses of potassium, so if you have already introduced carrots under crops, then increase the top dressing with potassium.
Sometimes there is a summer twist of carrot leaves. At the same time they acquire a bluish or reddish hue. This, of course, is not a leaf block. So the plant signals a lack of potassium. The lack of soil in barium and manganese can lead to a blackening of the core in the root crop. Therefore, just in case, once a season, at the time of root growth( after the 5-6th leaf), carrots should be sprinkled with trace elements.
Uniflor-micro( or Uniflor-bud, if there is a lack of potassium) is best suited for this. Root often protrudes from the ground. It must be sprinkled with soil, otherwise the part sticking out above the surface of the soil will turn green and become inedible.