Nowadays, carrots are available in stores almost all year round and are locally grown. With a little gardening skill, carrots can also be sown in your own garden and continually harvested for consumption.
How to harvest carrots continuously?
In order to be able to harvest carrots continuously, you should sow new rows every month, starting at the end of February or beginning of March. Regular sowing allows for a steady harvest of fresh carrots from the garden throughout the summer.
The right preparation determines the success of the harvest
When it comes to carrots, the foundation for a rich harvest is laid when the soil is prepared. Before sowing, this should be loose and nutrient-rich so that the main roots of the carrots can develop unhindered. Fertilization with stable manure should already have taken place in the autumn before carrots are grown, otherwise the conditions for the seedlings will be suboptimal and pests such as the carrot fly will be magically attracted.
Carrots need space to develop
When sowing carrots directly in the bed, less is often more. The tiny carrot seeds should be sown extremely sparingly in rows about 25 centimeters apart. If the plants that germinate after about three weeks are too close together, the delicious roots cannot develop optimally. Since this is the case in most cases, you will still have to separate a few plants to make room for gorgeous carrots.
An interim harvest also creates space
Carrots generally do not need a certain minimum size to be ripe for consumption. You can therefore combine thinning out rows of carrots that are too dense with an intermediate harvest. For direct fresh consumption, carefully pull individual young carrots out of the row until there is a distance of at least five centimeters between the remaining plants in the row.
The continuous harvest through staggered sowing dates
Depending on the variety, carrots can often be sown under fleece at the end of February or beginning of March. After a growing season of around three months, the first carrots can be harvested from the bed around May. Sow new rows every month so that you can harvest fresh carrots from the garden all summer long. The possible uses for carrots are extremely diverse:
- as a raw, he althy snack between meals
- as a treat for dogs
- as a low-calorie ingredient in mixed vegetables
- as a tasty puree
- as a colorful soup garnish
Tips & Tricks
When you harvest carrots from the bed every now and then, you should make sure to carefully pull them out of the slightly moist soil. In this way you prevent exposing root necks that are not yet intended for harvest.