Carrots

The weather went from having a hard freeze to 80 degrees in 2 days.  That put everything into high-gear.  Today I built another 4x4 box to go on top of another, making it 12 inches deep.  This is where my carrots will grow.  Unfortunately I got a late start on it.

I set out around 7:45 PM to build the box and plant the carrots, however upon arriving in the garden, I noticed that not only have the plants really taken of with the warm days and rainy nights, so have the weeds.  So I started by weeding my lettuce, spinach and radishes.  Once that was done I went over to the onions and garlic.  Then I weeded the box where the carrots would go, even though these weeds would soon be covered with 6-7 inches of dirt.

Having all that done, I cut my boards, nailed the box together and got it to the garden, just as the sun was going below the treetops.  I figured I had 30 minutes until it got dark.  With my double box in place, I fired up the tractor and started hauling soil from my compost bins.  One and a half buckets in the loader and the box was full.  With daylight quickly fading, I measured out the square feet, drove some 8 penny nails in the box and ran to get the seeds & twine.  Wrapping the twine around the nails marks off each square foot.

Double high carrot box

I marked out my 16 holes per square foot and I could no longer see to tell if my seeds were hitting the holes.  So I got a flashlight, and planted 256 carrots under the full moon with a flash light.  Had it been beans or corn I was planting, there would have been no need for the flashlight, but with the tiny carrot seeds, I really didn't have a choice.  Other than being eaten by mosquitos, it was a really nice, cool evening to be planting.  And being able to finish under the moonlight was cool.