I read your recent "Anchorage Gardening" article in the ADN (Saturday, April 28) and learned a few things I can use for my summer gardening experience. I love Alaskan carrots and grow a huge crop each year in my raised beds. Karen Johnson, a Valley gardener, wrote in to share some additional information about growing carrots: Saturday, May 26: Alaska Botanical Garden plant sale. If, like many home gardeners, you are attracted to the idea of growing your own salad, carrots should be on your list, right after lettuce and spinach. Remove the mulch in the spring and, if all goes well, you may have a two-to-three-week jump on the season," she said. "Cover it with clear polyethylene and a six-inch layer of leaves. Break up the "crust of frosty soil" and rake in broadcast seed. In "The Alaska Gardener's Handbook," Lenore Hedla suggests a fall planting after you've harvested your summer crop. A raised bed or mounded rows takes care of this with minimum fuss. That means you have to make sure the soil is easy for them to grow through: 8-12 inches of well-worked, clumpless, good draining soil. They'll twist around anything in their way, split or stop growing. Be safe, plant some seeds and some tape.Ĭarrots grow down and they don't like obstructions as they push underground. However, be warned, not everyone is happy with how the tape works. Yes, it can be done, but it's annoying.Īn alternative is to use seed tape. Just try dropping one seed at a time in a straight row. You have presumably figured out what your soil needs by way of added nutrients.Ĭarrots like a fertilizer with a large middle number or some bone meal, according to Margaret.Ĭarrot seeds are a hair larger than dust, a real pain to handle. Don't plant them all at once so you can harvest over time. For a variety promising "super tasty, nutritious, sweet and tender" (we'll see), Territorial Seed Company offers Sugarsnax 54.
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