by Gilbert TaylorCarrots are an earthly delight that come in colors ranging from white through purple, and in sizes ranging from the tiny thumbelina to a whopping 15 pounds! They are great tasting raw or cooked, and serve as the basis for healthy drinks from the juice machine. On top of all this, they are loaded with vitamin A.Recently, a fellow EAU member got in touch with me about his carrots. It seems he was having some germination problems. Now, rather than keep what I told him secret, I’ll share it with all of our readers. After all, with Peak Oil just around the corner, if you don’t already have a garden you should be fixing to start one.There are tricks to getting the best stands of carrots, all of which relate to the carrot’s unique properties and requirements.Carrots make very fragile seedlings that can hardly push through the soil. When you combine this with the fact that they take anywhere from 14-21 days to germinate, it is common for soils in which carrots are planted to develop a hard surface layer or crust that the delicate seedlings can’t push through. To make matters worse, for something that takes so long to germinate, it is hard to maintain even moisture levels. So a lot of carrots end up dying from lack of water during a critical phase of germination.I plant my carrots in very closely (2″) spaced rows across raised beds. What I do is drag a stick across the bed to make a furrow about two inches deep for every row. By the time I’m done, I have 24 rows for every four feet of bed. Then I fill each furrow with a “carrot germination mix” which is nothing more than a custom-made soil that retains moisture and doesn’t form a crust. To make this, I mix 1/3rd vermiculite with 1/3rd peat moss and 1/3rd finished compost by volume. (If you don’t have your own compost, I recommend Winterwood Farms’ shellfish compost.) I water this mixture lightly and pack it into the furrow. Then I use a hand seeder that looks like a syringe to put one seed every 1″ along each row. When all the seeds are in place, I then gently put the palm of my hand against the top of the row, and shake it lightly as I move my palm down the length of the row. This way, the carrot seeds aren’t planted too deeply. (Also, using this method, I get as many carrots in a 4’x4′ space as conventional gardeners get with a 100′ row!)Using this method, I get 85% germination rates for my carrots, provided I water thoroughly with a very light mist every day that it doesn’t rain and they are planted at the right time of year. (Watering heavily will wash out the seeds and expose them to drying. So use a misting attachment and take your time – the results will be worth it!)Throughout most of North America, carrots are best planted in late spring or early fall, once soil temperatures have hit about 55 degrees. Anywhere from 55-75 degrees, germination rates are about the same. But below 55 degrees or above 75 degrees, germination failure increases dramatically until by the time you reach 95 degrees, you get no germination whatsoever. So in most parts of the country, carrots planted in the spring should be planted 2-4 weeks before last frost.Now for a final tip. I have the earliest carrots around and folks are just amazed. Here’s how I do it.In the fall, I plant a different variety of carrot than I plant in the spring. For spring sowing, I like Nantes-type and Cosmic Purple carrots. But in the fall, about 2-4 weeks before the first predicted frost, I plant an heirloom variety of carrot called St. Valery. It takes a whopping 240 days to mature! When the days get cold after we’ve had our first hard frost, I cover the carrots with a mulch of straw for the winter. In early spring, I take off the mulch. That way, I have carrots before most folks have even planted theirs!Until next time, happy gardening!