Thursday, May 12, 2011

Carrot Gemination

This is a repost of the post I wrote yesterday, but Blogger ate. If they put it back up I'll delete this one.

Earlier this spring I did a very unscientific experiment on the best way to germinate carrot seeds. Well the results are in.

The first set of carrots was sown using and takeoff of Granny's method. I cut toilet paper into three foot lengths each 3/4" wide. Then every inch I put down a dab of glue and put on a seed. Then I hung them up in the nursery to dry (where my laundry lines are). Granny does them in blocks, but I like strips because I find them easier to cover with soil. I tried blocks one year and it was just too much work (I don't have a pile of nicely sifted dirt or compost). These were covered by burlap and watered every afternoon.

Germination of these were fantastic as I never forgot to water - a miracle in itself. I would say of all the methods, this produced the best germination and spacing.

The next set shown above are the ones that were directly sown in the bed, but then covered with burlap. They have pretty good germination, but there are gaps and seeds that are too close together and had to be thinned out with difficulty (two carrots together are hard to thin).

The next set are the ones that were directly sown and then covered by boards to germinate. They were checked everyday to see if the boards needed to come off. These had the same sowing issues. No matter how hard you try to put one seed in the line, it just doesn't happen. The germination wasn't quite as good and some damped off after they came up. But it wasn't bad.

The last set was a weird one. I took a 1 1/2" wide strip of TP and put a seed in the middle and folded it over. I then wet it down and covered it in an inch wide strip of plastic wrap. Then I rolled it up. I waited a few days for it to start to germinate inside and unrolled it outside. The plastic wrap did its job of holding the TP together. But separating the two once it was unrolled was really hard. The TP kept falling apart as you would expect. But it worked. Above is the result. Germination was very good. There was one 8" section out of a 15' row that got killed by damping off but it wasn't too bad.

Though the last option made the plants earlier to germinate (by about a week and a half). They really aren't that much larger than the others. They have one more true leaf. Carrots don't grow very fast when it is freezing out. I expect that they would mature only a few days earlier than the others. So the effort isn't worth it. The board vs burlap doesn't change the germination time. I figured the burlap would be faster since the ground can warm up faster, but it really wasn't. One day or two isn't really an issue. But with the burlap there was no damping off as there was with the board. And obviously that matters to me as I've had a lot of damping off issues this year in the garden. I never had seedlings damp off in my last garden, but this one has other fungi in the soil. So for me it will be burlap. But if I need to germinate carrots while I'm not here, boards would be better as I don't have to water everyday. As long as I know they won't germinate before I get home it will work. Boards are much easier.

The TP strips work great and give nice even germination. I even found that it doesn't matter if the TP is on top of the seed or underneath. Both seemed to work. I'm wondering if germination was better than the non TP ones. It is hard to tell, but it might be. Does the TP provide more even moisture to the seed? Maybe. Just make sure that TP is totally covered or the air will wick all the moisture away from the seed.

So from now on I'm doing TP strips and burlap. Or if I'm sick, out of town, or just plain lazy, I'll switch to boards.

19 comments:

  1. Interesting experiment! I used pelleted carrot seed this year and used my planting jig and I noticed the first beds I planted are up and growing and the spacing is good. I like the pelleted seed (kaolin clay surrounds the seed) makes it easier not to put so many seeds into one spot by accident. The pelleted seed does not store well though so I have to be careful to only buy what I will use by mid summer.

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  2. I too have pelleted seed. That is interesting that they don't store well as mine are from last year. I too am going to try using the jig to plant them. I do have some doing a germination test right now so will see how well they germinate or if I will be buying new seed. If I have to buy new seed it won't be pelleted so time will tell as I hope to plant as soon as we are over the next full week of rain starting tomorrow.

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  3. That was quite an experiment! I've had a lot of success with carrots and radishes using seed mats. Lettuce and beets, not so much. They do take time to make but it's much more reliable then direct sowing.

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  4. When I thin tiny seedlings, I just cut them off at soil level with a nail scissors and leave them if they are too close to the ones I want to keep to remove without damaging those.

    Somewhere I read recently that cinnamon controls damping off. It seemed to work on my seeds started indoors. Although I imagine it would be expensive to use on a large scale.

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  5. This year I used a dial sower which really helped with seeding, very little thining is needed and like others I just snip the leaves at soil level. However I just bought the recent issue of Hobby Home because it had an article on homemade seed strips and I thought I would try it next year. I am glad to find that those worked well for you.

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  6. Interesting to read your controlled study!!
    For the first time this year I made a seed mat using cheap papertoweling, Elmer's glue etc. I just put it out in the garden last week so I am watching to see how it goes. I didn't think of TP...that would work better.

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  7. I have switched from napkin mats to TP strips, too. Reason being, like you, I don't have enough fine soil for sifting this year, plus I'm back to gardening in rows rather than squares. My carrot germination looks really good, but they are growing sooooo slowly this year.

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  8. Thanks for this Daphne. But some translation is required for us Europeans. Burlap = Hessian, but TP? I'm guessing it's what we call "masking tape"? (as used for covering areas you don't want painted when you are painting).

    I tried Granny's mat method (Thanks Granny) last year but the results all got a bit jumbled up as the weeds kind of got a hold before I noticed under the netting that is essential to keep the root fly at bay.

    I've sown 12 rows of carrots this year (and run out of netting) but will follow your example and try out masking tape next year!

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  9. Neat experimant. I am curious might want to try went spriing comes again. I don't have any space to grow carrots now.

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  10. Neat experiment. If I get back to Oregon and my carrots haven't sprouted, I'll have to try Granny's method.

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  11. Blogger died a horrible death sometime yesterday. Then it ate my post. So I don't have all your comments. I do remember someone asked what TP is. It is toilet paper. Since it is made to be flushed down the toilet and not clog the pipes, it dissolves very easily in water - or in the dirt as the case may be.

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  12. It seems like Granny's TP method and burlap works the best! I had great results as well. I also had good results with Granny's TP and boards in the greenhouse. Those carrots seem to be doing the best since I have the shade cover over the greenhouse.

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  13. I've so got to get on the TP bandwagon.

    I haven't checked my posts...makes me nervous.

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  14. I think I posted about using manicure scissors to just snip off seedlings when I'm thinning, to avoid disturbing the roots of the ones I want to keep.

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  15. I was just going to email you about your carrot experiment to see how it all turned out- I decided to put mine in paper towel rolled up- it worked and I've managed to plant some- although I didn't space them right, etc. We'll see how they do. I read on another site someone germinating them in a gel like substance they make with corn starch. When they see they've germinated they scoop them out one at a time and plant them with each with a little goo to keep them moist- I'm trying that next and I'll let you know how it works out. The paper towel thing was a bit tedious for me :) If I do it that way again I'll do it in a strip and put them thinning distance and sow the whole strip once they sown- this seems the easiest.

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  16. Robin, TP really did work so much better than not having it. Next winter I'll make them up before the season starts.

    Ribbit, supposedly they restored the posts, but they didn't do it for mine. So I had to put it back manually.

    Karen Anne, What makes them hard for me is not snipping or pulling them out. But they are so close together I have trouble untangling them. And now that I'm getting older it makes it worse since I never bring my reading glasses out into the garden.

    Tessa, That other method seems really really tedious. Even if it gives you 100% germination that would be really slow.

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  17. I'm curious about the need to start carrots in any type of particular way...my carrot germination method consists of sprinkling seeds through one of those cheapie $3 seeders onto the ground they're supposed to grow and sprinkling a light cover of dirt over them. They seem to grow OK that way. Am I missing something? Because all of this talk of TP and glue makes me think I might be...

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  18. Well if carrots come up for you without work than go for it, but for me carrot germination can be spotty. Sometimes they just don't come up well at all. So anything that can help me get better germination, I'll go for.

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  19. excellent post, very useful. told me exactly what i needed to know. i am planting carrots right now for my fall garden.

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