What is the best month to plant carrots?

Carrot is a widely grown and consumed root vegetable that is rich in beta-carotene and has a relatively long growth cycle, usually 70 to 120 days from sowing to harvesting. So which month is the best time to plant carrots?

What is the best month to plant carrots?

The best time to grow carrots is usually spring and fall. Specifically:

1. Spring Planting

Spring is one of the best times to sow carrots, and it is suitable to sow from the end of March to the beginning of May. At this time, the temperature gradually warms up and the soil temperature also rises, which is conducive to the growth of carrots.

2. Autumn Planting

Autumn is also a good time to sow carrots, and it is suitable to sow them from the end of August to the beginning of September. The temperature in autumn is suitable and the weather is dry, making it less prone to diseases and insect pests. In addition, carrots sown in autumn will have better quality and sweeter taste.

Carrot Planting Tips

1. Land selection

When choosing land for growing carrots, in addition to ensuring that the environment is pollution-free, priority should also be given to fertile, loose, well-drained, and neutral or slightly acidic sandy loam or loam. The planting area should be tilled to a depth of at least 30 cm and raked to ensure the soil is finely broken up. It is preferred to use silt loam or sandy loam with high terrain, good drainage, deep soil layer, loose texture and rich in organic matter.

2. Farming

The tillage depth should be controlled at 25-30 cm, and it is best to use animal power for deep plowing before winter. Before sowing, till the soil again in combination with the application of base fertilizer. The application amount of base fertilizer is 3,000 kg of decomposed farmyard manure, 40-50 kg of potassium sulfate compound fertilizer , 50 kg of calcium magnesium phosphate fertilizer and 25 kg of potassium sulfate per mu, evenly buried in the soil layer below 6 cm. The width of the ridge should be 110-130 cm, the height 30 cm, and the shape slightly turtle-back shaped.

3. Weeding

Thin out the carrots when they have 4-5 leaves, leaving 60 plants per square meter (row spacing 15 cm, plant spacing 11-12 cm). If there are many monocotyledonous weeds in the field, you can use 20 ml of 10.8% grass-capping agent mixed with 20 kg of water for spraying to achieve chemical weed control.

4. Fertilization and irrigation

After the carrots emerge, remove the mulch. In hot and dry weather, seedlings are prone to water shortage, which affects their normal growth. Therefore, it is necessary to water them in the early morning or evening or irrigate the ditches to keep the soil moist and maintain the field water holding capacity at around 70%. About 20 days later, at the 7-8 leaf stage, combine watering with applying 10 kg of potassium sulfate compound fertilizer and 5 kg of potassium sulfate per mu.

The main fertilizer elements needed for carrot growth include macroelements (nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium), secondary elements (calcium, silicon) and trace elements (boron, zinc, molybdenum, magnesium, manganese, iron).

5. Soil cultivation

In order to ensure that the skin of exported carrots is uniform in color and has no green heads, row sowing should be adopted so that soil can be built up during the period when the fleshy roots are expanding.

6. Harvest

When the heart leaves of most plants turn yellow-green and the outer leaves turn yellow, it indicates that the carrots have reached physiological maturity and can be harvested manually or mechanically. After harvesting, cut off the green tops, gently scrape off the soil, select carrots without forked roots, cracked roots, diseased and insect-infested roots and with a single root weight of more than 70 grams, and pack them in bags for sale.

7. Storage

Since carrots are perishable and seasonal, good storage methods or utilization methods are needed to maximize their value. Commonly used storage methods include ditch storage and cellar storage, and kiln storage is currently the most commonly used storage method in production. The depth of the pit should exceed the permafrost layer, generally 2 meters deep and 3 meters wide, with no limit on length. The cellar cover material can be straw or wood, covered with 40 cm thick soil. The bagged carrots are stacked into 1-meter-high piles, the cellar entrance is sealed, and ventilation holes are left. The temperature in the cellar should be maintained at 1-3℃ and the humidity at 95%. Sales are carried out during the spring thaw.

In general, the climatic conditions in different regions are different, and the sowing time needs to be selected according to local climatic conditions. In the southern regions with warm and humid climate, you can choose to sow in spring and autumn. The Northeast and Northwest regions are from late June to early July, other areas in the North are from mid-July to early August, and the South is from mid to late August. Therefore, depending on your geographical location, you can choose the appropriate spring or autumn season for planting carrots.