Now I plant them two ways: In beds made of small ridges 4" or so--
apart. I can identify the location of the carrots by the ridges and
weed the rest clean, also I can water in the space between ridges
without washing out the tiny seeds. When the carrots have
established themselves, I fill in the troughs between ridges with
compost to level the bed once more.
A second method is this: and it comes from the observations of my
failed attempts to transplant them. Hairy carrots do not result so
much from too much fertility as it does from too much fertility close
to the surface. The no-till-teetotalers depend on earthworms to drag
organic material own rather than mix it in mechanically. This tends
to have the upper layers more fertile than the lower layers.
The carrot's game plan is to decide how big a tap root it will use to
store food, then send down the root to a certain depth and branch the
roothairs from there. If it finds the upper layers very fertile but
the lower ones not, it has no recourse but to send out root hairs
from the swollen root.
So here is my second way: I get a really fertile bed prepared
usually by applying a lot of chicken manure and or rabbit manure
(plus wood ashes which also contain potassium and calcium). Then I
cover that with some inert organic material or else very low
fertility material such as neutralized peat, half rotten sawdust,
light compost with a lot of creek sand. This inert-ish material goes
on 4" thick or better. Carrot seeds are broadcast on top. Weeds are
mimimum but kept religiouisly pulled.
The carrot looks at the medium in which it has sprouted and
immediately sends down the tiny taproot until it finds the very
fertile ground beneath. It doesn't bother to branch the taproot
before that because it knows it would do it little good.
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