carrots

The little Carrots were growing in clumps, from how I scattered the seed, and because there were some big gaps where I pulled out deep clover roots. A few days ago I dug up a few young carrot plants and shifted them to other spots, to space them out evenly. I know carrots don't like their roots disturbed (that's why they're better directly sown than started indoors) so I just did a handful to see how it worked out. Most of them survived, were lifting up their leaves again by morning.

So yesterday I finished the job, on the entire patch. It helped that the day before was very rainy, so the plants were well-hydrated and the soil clumpy. To loosen each plant without pulling out its neighbor (some growing very close, side by side) I thrust vertically into the ground all around the seedling a retired butter knife (serves many useful purposes in gardening!) and then gently wedged it out. Tucked them into their new places a little deeper than they'd been growing. Gave them a huge amount of water, so it was puddling all over before soaking in. This morning when I went out to look, most of them had recovered just fine.

Next year I've got to figure out a way to sow them evenly, instead of going to all this trouble. Making seed strips didn't work for me. And the seeds are way too fine to see where they lie when I sprinkle them onto the soil. I've never marked out rows with stakes and string, preferring to just eyeball a straight line, or make a groove in the soil with a trowel. But maybe that would work better.