Planting Carrots and Root Crops Part 1

This is my last big block of planting for the Spring planting season.  These are not early carrots and such but my main season root crops for winter storage.  My two 50 square foot carrot beds also include parsnips, beets, and rutabagas.  All these crops will be stored later right where they stand under a foot of raked fall leaves.

In my four-year rotation, the carrot beds, along with the onion bed next to them, follow the greenhouse with its tomatoes, peppers, and cucumbers.  Last Fall after rolling the greenhouse to its new spot I planted fall rye in this future carrot bed and erected my surplus leaf pile / bin on the rest of it.  In April I covered the fall rye with black plastic to mostly kill it and now I’ve finally removed the remaining leaves from the bin.

The first thing to do in preparing the beds is to slice / edge the lawn next to the sides of the beds that are bordered by it.  My guideline is measured four feet from the fence and I have a handy mark on my bow rake’s handle to guide me instead of running a string or using a tape measure.  The importance of edging to the depth of my spade is to cut off any wild grass roots and rhizomes.  This will slow any later invasion from those grasses.

The trimmed sod pieces and weeds are bashed against the shovel to remove the soil then tossed into my compost box, stones are collected and set aside and any tree roots and such are saved for my road side collection compost can. 

Next the bed paths are remeasured from the fence and marked with temporary stakes and a string line. The path edges along the string line are then marked with my shovel blade.  With the bed boundaries reestablished I remove the string but leave the stakes for eyeballing later while tilling and raking the bed flat.  The string will only get in the way of my mini-tiller. 

I measure out the soil amendments on my little garden scale.  Carrots and parsnips cannot handle any extra nitrogen or their roots will become hairy but I do use 2 lbs. of Dolomite lime per 100 square feet as well as 2 lbs. of Bone Meal or Rock Phosphate (the slow stuff, not the super phosphate the commercial farmers use).  I apply / sprinkle each amendment separately.  I’ve gotten good at grabbing a handful and letting it trickle through my fingers.  If it is breezy I bend over more to get my hand closer to the soil to restrict drift, always applying an even amount over the whole bed but planning to have some left over at the end which can then be applied to bare patches.  It’s no fun overspreading initially and then running out three quarters along the bed.

My amendment recommendations are based upon Steve Solomon’s “Growing Vegetables West of the Cascades”.  His chapter on Soil is most valuable.  His recipe for Organic Fertilizer is excellent, however he measures it in volume.  I prefer to measure mine by weight.

Next comes the new secret ingredient.  My son The Organic Grower (TOG) had read or heard from Eliot Coleman (author of “The Organic Grower”) out east in Maine that digging in old fall leaves into the carrot bed did wonders.  I don’t understand how, (I've always thought of leaves as being just carbon) but it really works.  My production levels have increased by 50% from about 1 lb. of carrots per square foot to a pound and a half!  That’s 6 lbs. per 4 feet of row.  I’ve been saving my neighbour’s maple leaves in a covered barrel for a year and a half and they are spread over the bed and get incorporated when tilling my other amendments in.

 

For many years BT (before tiller) I’ve turned my soil with a spade and mixed that with my bow rake.  More recently I’ve been using my grub hoe – much like a third world hoe only with a 2 lb. head instead of their usual 3 lb. head.  I found my grub hoe, called a Planter’s Eye Hoe, in a hardware store in southern California.  Since then I have seen them once here in Canada in Otter Co-op in Aldergrove. 

Alas, my old shoulder isn’t getting any younger and I discovered that Mantis finally made an electric tiller that was multi speed and had nearly the same RPM as their gas ones.  I had a gas Mantis in the early 1990’s that worked well for some time.  But an electric one would be just the ticket for me now.  It blends in the amendments most excellently.

Today's fashion of minimal or shallow tillage is great.  It disturbs fewer weed seeds in the soil and doesn't disturb the soil layers, but for me, my weed seed count is quite low -- I've been studious in not letting weeds mature to seed.   Even though my tiller goes to eight inches deep, it is a true blessing for mixing in amendments and making a smoother seed bed.

Important Note:  All this is accomplished while Never Stepping On The Bed!