Growing Marketable Carrots in Boxes
Winter Lake participates in a farmers market. The farmers market customers demand the freshest produce possible. It was reasoned that the freshest produce is picked immediately before sale to the customers. To find the best ways of getting the freshest produce to the customers, several methods were tried.
The most successful method was to grow the produce in boxes that were taken to the market. The produce was harvested from the boxes in the presence of the customer and the sale was made. This resulted in the freshest produce available. This method was very popular with the customers. They had the experience of seeing the produce harvested and also having the freshest produce possible. This method was simple to implement and had few drawbacks.
One of the produce crops grown was carrots. Various configurations of boxes, soils and carrot types were tried. The important factors were the depth of the boxes and the variety of carrot.
The most successful boxes contained a minimum of eight inches of soil. Boxes were no larger than eighteen inches long by fourteen inches wide. Larger boxes became too heavy to conveniently transport. The soil used was a fifty/fifty mix of very sandy loam and a commercial organic soil conditioner.
The carrot varieties grown were half Danforths. Half Danforths produce a carrot between six and eight inches long. The carrots were planted in a grid two inches apart. The germination rate was better than ninety percent. The carrots were harvested when they showed good shoulders on the roots. The carrots had a successful development rate of ninety five percent, giving around eighty five percent of the seeds planted making salable carrots. The most common problem was carrots developing only a small, spindly stem. The next common problem was carrots growing too long for the soil depth. This resulted in the end of the carrots being deformed against the bottom of the box. Only a few of the carrots had either of these problems.
The customers were satisfied with the carrots and all the carrots in the boxes quickly sold.
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