Harvest Monday, February, 22, 2016 – Carrots Transplant Update

Harvest for the week was my container grown transplanted carrots.

Container grown transplanted carrots

Have been experimenting with transplanting carrots and the end results were crooked or short stubby carrots. See 7/28/14 (click and scroll down) and 11/10/14 posts.

Thinking: Why did the carrots  thinnings I transplanted at Locust Grove Heritage Vegetable Garden grow into good size straight carrots?

After giving the matter some thought concluded this had to do with the size of the seedlings roots.

I was growing carrot seedlings in 2-inch deep cell packs (above photo from 2014) and when transplanted out the seedlings were still very tiny and the roots were tangled which made it difficult to keep the roots straight resulting in crooked carrots or part of the roots were broken off resulting in short stubby carrots.

The carrot thinnings at LGHVG were growing in the ground and had formed long skinny carrots (about pencil-size and rigid) making them easy to transplant (just make a deep hole and put the seedling root in straight).

Solution: Grow seedlings in larger and deeper container and transplant when roots have formed skinny carrots (about pencil-size). That’s the theory, will it work? Read on …..

Carrot seedlings ready for transplant

Sowed the carrot seeds in a 6-inch deep straight-sided container (taken 2015 in the above photo a plastic milk container) and transplanted the seedlings when they formed long skinny carrots (about pencil-size and rigid).

Left: Untrimmed carrot seedling. Right: Trimmed carrot seedling.

Also decided to trim some of the seedlings roots to see if there is any differences. It was much easier to transplant the trimmed seedlings, but what will the carrots look like?

Left: Result from untrimmed carrot seedling. Right: Result from trimmed carrot seedling.

Some of the untrimmed roots were nice and straight while some were crooked like the one in the above photo. I am guessing that the crooked ones were the ones where the root got bent when transplanting.

All the trimmed roots resulted in straight carrots but they were shorter and had blunt ends instead of long tapered ends.

Conclusion: Carrots can be successfully transplanted.

Is it worthwhile? For me it is.

I can get a jump start on spring carrots planting. My garden sits at the bottom of a slope and takes forever to dry out in the spring, now I can start a portion of my carrots in container under grow light and transplant out as soon as the soil is workable.

It also allows me to start my fall carrots in a timely manner and transplant into the garden as soon as garden space becomes available.

Transplanting carrot seedlings should not be anymore tedious than transplanting leeks or onions and this year I may trim all the roots to make the task easier.

Carrots seedlings can be transplanted into the garden or into container. I have tried both. The carrots in the first photo were grown in container.

I believe this would be a wonderful project for children.

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