How to thin out carrots correctly. Important tips and tricks

Why you need to thin out carrots

To get a good harvest of carrots, thinning is indispensable. Not everyone has the time to sow carrots right away at the right distance. The seeds of this culture are rather small, the plantings, as a rule, are one of the largest in our plots. Painstaking unfolding of seeds can take more than one hour, and in spring time is a scarce thing. In addition, there is no guarantee that all the seeds will sprout, so we sow with a "reserve".

Growing plants become cramped in the garden, they interfere with each other to grow and develop correctly. If the seedlings are not thinned out in time, the carrots will grow weak.

When to thin out carrots

Thinning carrots is recommended twice. The first time, when the seedlings have 2-3 leaves, the second, about a month later, at the stage of 5 - 6 leaves.

At the first thinning, a distance of 1-2 cm is left between the shoots, at the second - 4-5 cm.

It is not worth delaying the thinning of carrots, since with a thickened planting, the growing roots of the plants intertwine with each other, and it will not work to pull through some shoots without damaging the root system of others.

Pulling out all the seedlings in a row is not worth it, pulling those that are weaker.

How to properly pull the seedlings

Before thinning the bed with carrots, you need to shed well, then it will be easier to pull out the sprouts. It is also recommended to carry out these works in cloudy weather, when it is easier for the plants to recover.

Thinning, they try to pull the sprouts up, not tilting them or loosening them. For convenience, tweezers are used, with which it is easy to capture small and thin seedlings at their very base.

After thinning, the bed is watered with warm water, in a volume of at least 2-3 liters per 1 square meter. The soil in the aisles is loosened.

Some gardeners practice transplanting pulled seedlings to another place. Most of them, having been ill, will nevertheless take root. Carrots grown from tucked-through sprouts will be somewhat shorter, but generally edible.

Such an experiment can be done only at the first thinning. The seedlings pulled through the second time are unlikely to take root.

By the way, beetroot, celery and parsley sprouts take root well in the new place.

It should be noted that all preparatory work for such a transplant must be done before you begin to thin out the seedlings. After transplanting, the plants need to be watered abundantly.

So that the carrot smell exuded by the plants during pulling does not attract the carrot fly, it is recommended to thin out the carrots early in the morning or in the evening, and it is better to take the pulled out sprouts away from the garden and sprinkle them with earth. The very same bed can be sprinkled with ash.

Combining thinning with other works

Carrots, from the moment of sowing, germinate for a rather long time, at least 3 weeks. Whereas weeds on the carrot garden appear much earlier. Developing much faster, weeds interfere with carrot shoots, drowning out their growth. In addition, if weeding is not carried out in time, then later, when removing the weeds, their well-developed roots will also pull thin carrot sprouts. Therefore, thinning is often combined with weeding of carrots.

To make it easier to find carrot rows, radishes, spinach, lettuce are sown along with carrot seeds, which sprout faster and help to navigate when weeding.

Opinions were divided about the weather in which it is better to weed carrots.

Some gardeners believe that weeding the beds should be done when the soil is moist, so the soil becomes softer and more pliable, and weeds are removed more easily and faster.

For others, weeding is optimal in dry weather, since the roots of the weeds remaining in the soil dry out in the sun and do not germinate again.

To help the carrot seeds break through before the weeds take over the garden, the soil can be loosened up.

The crust formed on the soil impedes the flow of air to the seeds, and small carrot sprouts are unable to break through.

It is necessary to loosen very carefully so as not to damage the still weak root system of the plant. Some gardeners use a homemade tool - a wooden roller filled with nails. Others loosen the soil with a fork or small rake or shovels from houseplant kits.

To prevent the formation of a soil crust, planting with carrots is mulched.

You can use compost, mowed grass, chopped nettle as mulch. It is still worth mulching the beds with peat chips, since peat acidifies the soil, and carrots grow better and develop correctly on soil with a neutral ph level. The layer of mulch at the initial stage should be small so that the seedlings do not "burn out".

Also, it should be borne in mind that during the first month after sowing, the root grows in the carrot, and then the leaves develop. Therefore, the plant seedlings themselves are recommended to be watered no earlier than a week after their appearance, in order to prevent damage. To prevent the seedlings from drying out, you can gently water the soil in the aisles.