Overwintering carrots with time confusion

Overwintering carrots with time confusion

In the middle of October last year, I sowed carrots in a manure bench - an attempt that I hardly believed in myself, but there was nothing to lose, as the bench still had to be sown with carrots the following March. Almost 2 months later - in early December it was found that the germination was ok, even after the soil had been frozen several times since sowing, and the roots were allowed to take care of themselves until the holes in the rows were reseeded in March. .

The experiment has been shown to result in both good news and bad news. The good news is fine carrots are much earlier than usual (when sowing in March), while the bad news is that several of the plants have chosen to go into seed rather than make an edible root. And such a cane run is probably not something I have previously experienced in carrots. In other words, the autumn and winter frosty weather must have fallen at an unfortunate time in some of the roots' short lives - and thus formed them into thinking that they were now 2 years old and thus old enough to set seeds.

Written by Peter Norris