The Carrot Conundrum: Growing Carrots in Heat

This year carrots decided to impart upon me some important lessons. Lesson the first: Just because something worked the previous year, doesn't mean it will work this year. Lesson the second: You should use shade cloth if you are growing summer carrots in the South. Perhaps most importantly, lesson the third: Put up the shade cloth BEFORE you sow your carrots... three separate times. Yeah. So that happened this year.

Let's delve deeper, shall we? Last year in June my garden was non-existent. We had just moved in and I only had one bed that came with the house. There was hardly any soil in it, we had no idea the quality, but being the impatient person I am I didn't want to wait until next summer growing season, I threw some fairly random stuff in the bed, including carrots. It was a unusually cool June, so that helped.

To my delight the carrots grew easily with no intervention. So naturally, this year when I sowed my carrots I wasn't expecting too much trouble. The weather seemed similar, a second year of unusually cool and wet (so I thought). By this point I had added soil, compost and food to the beds and was much more confident about soil quality. Easy peasy, right? Should be no problem! Hah!

I sowed the seeds in one of my new beds. I lost wave one to an unexpected rain storm. When round two germinated, but still failed, and I assumed I still needed to work on the soil, so round three was moved back to the bed that had successfully grown last year. I knew they wanted to be cool and wet, and was diligent about water. Unlike the previous year, I basically got no germination. The ones that did pop up failed within days.

So, clearly out of ideas on what to fix, I decided to run straight into that brick wall again. I replanted yet again. No Luck. Finally after much head scratching I realized that the carrots that were germinating were all hanging around in shade of other plants. Clearly meteorology is not my strong suit. They were too hot. So I sowed them a third time then covered the the area in shade cloth.

You more experienced gardeners may see where this is going...I now have three sets of seeds in the ground, in ideal conditions. Up until this point I was the person who hated thinning plants. Let me tell you, the sea of green that came up.... I got over it real quick. Since carrots are root vegetables, it was pretty important I bring them back to decent spacing, so that the roots would have room to develop.

I spent every morning for a about a week thinning. Two days to complete the initial thinning and the rest of the week to pull new ones as they continued to pop up. In sunny Southern California out hot weather is just beginning, so I suspect carrot land will be tented in shade cloth for quite some time.

So there you have it. If you want to start summer carrots in the hot south, keep the area well watered and in the shade. Use shade cloth if necessary, and you know, don't plant them three times before you do those first two. Thanks for joining me in my learning adventures,

Beth