How to transplant carrots?

How to transplant carrots? Contrary to what you might think, it is not so easy to plant carrots. And this for several reasons, starting with the transplant. We will see with you how to sow and transplant carrots to obtain good quality vegetables.

Transplantation of a first definition

Transplantation is a technique intended to transplant a previously seeded shoot. It is necessary to transplant after sowing. In fact, the seedlings are often squeezed into each other for a semi, and therefore, their growth potential is limited. In addition to this, the mixture of soil and fertilizer used in a semi is not the same as for the crop and is much lighter and less fertile. Therefore, it is important not to leave the young shoots too long in this preparation and transplant them directly into the ground or individual containers.

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Characteristics of carrots

The carrot is a root vegetable with a maturity of between 10 and 30 cm. Its size and cultivation vary between different varieties. This vegetable requires a large amount of organic matter to grow in addition to some space. Therefore, the carrot has one main root called the main root, but also many radicles. They are rooted smaller and thinner than the main one that develops around and provides the main root with all the nutrients it needs for its development.

Sowing carrots

Before transplanting carrots, it is necessary to make a semi. It must be done between February and Tuesday if done in a greenhouse and May-June if done outdoors. The semi-interior has many advantages; it allows to advance the cultivation period and therefore harvests. After semi-completion, you will have to wait approximately 2 weeks before the carrots are raised, and you can proceed to transplant. You will need to do the latter when the sprout has 2-5 leaves. In fact, if the leaves are too numerous, it means that the root will already be priced in volume. However, a carrot that is too large will not be able to suffer the trauma of transplantation.

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Transplanting carrots

To transplant carrots correctly, it is important to follow the instructions below:

1. Water your semi abundantly and wait around 1 hour.
2. Gently lift the mixture with a utensil such as a fork or a spoon. By lifting the edges first, you will be less likely to damage the roots.
3. Be careful not to damage the taproot and avoid the affected one—no need to clean it. You risk damaging secondary roots.
4. Prepare the welcome ground for the young shoot, which will be:

• In an individual bucket: first, fill it with compost and manure. After you have packed it well, make a hole in the center, wide enough to install the root. If you don’t have the right supplies, a pencil or stick will do.
• On a  very worked and non-sticky flexible floor. It will be essential to dig to a depth of about 25 cm and make sure that the soil is quite loose. Dig a hole capable of accommodating the carrot.

5. Install the seedling in the hole provided for this purpose, taking care that it is straight. To do this, take a dibble and push it towards the neck. It is imperative that the roots remain intact and do not bend.
6. Pack the soil around the young shoots and water your seedling liberally.

This transplant step should be done fairly early in the season and up to August at the latest. If this is not the case, your carrot may die in winter without having finished growing (if you don’t have a greenhouse).

When to harvest carrots?

The carrot harvest takes place during the season. In fact, not all of them develop at the same speed, and they also depend on the varieties. The harvest period lasts between April and November for the later ones.

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How to harvest carrots?

To simplify the carrot harvest, water the soil generously to make it less hard and simplify the extraction of vegetables. Early carrots are the easiest variety to extract and only require effort. For other varieties, you will need a spading fork. You will then need to pry out the carrots, careful not to damage the roots by pulling them out.

How to store and preserve carrots?

Storage of carrots is highly dependent on the variety harvested. Therefore, early carrots should be eaten as soon as possible. However, you can keep them in the freezer if you like. This will give you about a year to savor them.

The other varieties of carrots can last longer. To do this, you will have to cut the tips and clean the carrots with a splash of water to remove the dirt on all sides. Then you will need to dry them with a paper towel or cloth. You can then store them in dry sand, in the basement, or a silo. However, you will need to be careful that these foods do not attract rodents who love these vegetables. To do this, do not hesitate to protect the containers with a wire mesh or to store canned carrots.

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You would have around 10 days to taste your carrots stored as such and several months if you stored them in cans. It will also be possible to freeze them. To do this, julienne or slice them, blanch them in the layer, and wait for them to cool before storing them in the freezer. This way, you can wait 1 year before consuming them.

Tips and tricks for a successful carrot cultivation

For your carrot cultivation to be successful, there are many little tips that we share with you.

• Do not enrich the soil with manure or nitrogen. In fact, the carrot does not require a surplus of fertilizer. It is better to enrich the soil by applying crop rotation. In this way, the other vegetable crops grown in previous years will enrich the soil with organic matter. It is important to wait for 3 to 4 years before growing the same vegetable type in the same plot. In fact, the soil takes time to renew itself, and the too frequent cultivation of the same type of vegetable with the same soil needs will only reduce the nutrients present in the plot.
• Cover your plants with mulch. This will initially prevent the flies from laying eggs on the crown of the carrots. Also, this method will prevent the carrots from turning green on the ends.
• Do not transplant vegetables from the same family, that is, tubers, together with carrots. This is because they tend to attract the same pest that carrots have to have flown.
• Combine carrots with so-called alias vegetables like onion or garlic, for example. These will keep flies away.
• For its sowing, lay a layer of sand with a depth of about 1 centimeter. This will prevent the soil from crumbling and protect your seeds from various physiological problems such as non-perforation.
• To reduce thinning, aimed at choosing seedlings for transplantation, mix carrot seeds with semolina. The semolina must be more concentrated than the seeds. This will allow you to obtain a semi that will be less dense and, therefore, much less work before transplanting carrots.

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To conclude, transplanting carrots is a job that requires a lot of rigor because the roots of this vegetable are still very delicate and weak, and the slightest scratch will be irremediable. As such, it is important to prepare the semi and the soil that contains it thoroughly. The lighter and more flexible it is, the easier the transplant will be. We hope that we answered your question about How to transplant carrots and hope you found this article has been helpful to you, and we wish you good luck with your carrot crops.