Skip to Content.
Sympa Menu

market-farming - Re: [Market-farming] Planting high tunnel carrots in November?

market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org

Subject: Market Farming

List archive

Chronological Thread  
  • From: elaine granata <elainegranata AT msn.com>
  • To: "'Market Farming'" <market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [Market-farming] Planting high tunnel carrots in November?
  • Date: Thu, 13 Nov 2014 12:08:13 -0700

Title: Planting high tunnel carrots in November?

Marlin:  Read somewhere about Elliot Coleman’s “Persephone date” – the date when you no longer have 10 hours of sunlight.  After that date he says you can’t get much to germinate and grow.  I computed mine for Nov 10th in Denver – yours may be later in VA, but you are pushing the line.  But if you have time and  seed it might be worth an experiment – I figure a lot of farming is experimentation.

 

Elaine

Denver

 

From: Market-farming [mailto:market-farming-bounces AT lists.ibiblio.org] On Behalf Of Marlin Burkholder
Sent: Wednesday, November 12, 2014 5:42 PM
To: Market Farming
Subject: [Market-farming] Planting high tunnel carrots in November?

 


Today I took the frost killed tomatoes out of my high tunnel.  I had originally planned on shooting for an early tomato crop (ripe tomatoes in early June) and having the vines out by mid September and going back in with carrots and(or) some other winter hardy greens for winter marketing.  However a screw up on getting my plants started last January resulted in my needing to buy replacements (started in mid February) and my not getting the first ripe tomatoes until near the end of June.  I spent most of the summer with my wife wandering the far West in a small RV while a farm sitter looked after the farm.  When I returned  in mid August I found that the high tunnel tomatoes had been hard hit by early blight and bacterial spot.  Because this was the first year to try the “sucker to a single stem” and “train the single vine to a “string on a spool” and “lower and lean the vines as they grow” system I wanted to work with and gain experience with this system and decided to nurse the crop back to health with some foliar fertilizer and fungicide-bactericide and to carry the crop as long as I could into the fall.  I harvested and sold decent quality ripe tomatoes through October and when the hard freeze descended on November 3rd there were still a number of nice sized love apples yet to ripen.  I harvested these,  browned bagged them, and brought them inside to ripen.  If this technique works I will have them on my market table until the end of November.

Now the question.  Can I successfully work up the ground and seed a crop of carrots this late into the fall and have ready to dig carrots by early April?  I know it is getting awfully close to the winter solstice daylight deficient slowdown for getting new seedings started.  I thought I would put low tunnels covered with row cover inside the high tunnel to keep the beds a little warmer.   I think it would work okay for something like lettuce,chard, or spinach but I’m not so sure about carrots.  What ever I go with I want to be taking the winter crop out as I put tomatoes back in in April.  Last year this worked well with spinach in as the winter crop but I have enough spinach planted outside and it can stand the winters in Virginia without high tunnel protection.  We are in cold hardiness zone 6 in this part of Virginia.




Archive powered by MHonArc 2.6.24.

Top of Page