carrots

[aquilegia]

How long do carrots take? I'm growing chantenay and early nantes. I can't remember when I sowed them (although it's in my diary, which is upstairs!)

They look like they need thinning now, but I wanted to wait until they were at a reasonable eating size, so how long might that be?

I've never ever managed to grow carrots for this long before, so I'm getting rather excited about it all!

[aquilegia]

[superspud]

Carrots!, I planted mine ages ago, more than 3 weeks ago, sadly there is no sign of them at all..... pigeons I reckon, or the crows that are suddenly appearing and sitting on my fence with next door......  >:(

[Trevor_D]

Unless you've sown them very thickly indeed, you don't need to thin them in the conventional sense: pull out the largest and eat them. (The first thinnings will be baby finger-sized carrots.) The rest will then grow to fill the space available. So carry on pulling the biggest, until you end up with one carrot every few inches (or whatever that is in metric....) which can carry on growing as main-crop carrots for the autumn/winter.

[admjh1]

I planted my carrots out over 8 weeks ago not a trace to be seen !!!! Think I will give up the ghost trying to grow them. Never had much success .

[antipodes]

This is the first year where it looks like I might have success! I used 2 varieties, Healthmaster and Flyaway. I mixed loads of sand in the soil, and I sowed 3 times, always into the same patch, filling gaps - a patch, not rows. I watered a lot over the first few weeks, they took at least 2 weeks to germinate. But now I have a healthy patch with a lot of seedlings in it. I weeded it for the first time this weekend.  Bugger of a job!  Now I just have to wait and see if they will turn into carrots!