This year my husband decided to experiment with the carrots. He had read about broadcast seeding and wanted to try it out. I was skeptical. I like my little carrots in straight long rows, but I went along with the new plan. It’s always good to try new things I reasoned. If it’s an epic fail, I get to do the victory dance of a smug gardener…well, I wouldn’t have done it in front of him.
It turns out that instead of the smug sagacious dance of a victor, I’ll be having carrot flavored crow sandwiches for a rather long while:)
We harvested half a row yesterday and were rewarded with the above bounty (about 30#). A five gallon bucket, a large stock pot and a few on the side, whew. We have another row and a half to go. I am grateful I have such a big mouth ’cause that’s a mighty large bite o’ crow!
Which side of this equation have you found yourself on lately… crow eater or crow server? I really don’t mind either side in this instance since we are all winners in the great broadcast seeding experiment.
*anna
oceannah 
Beautiful carrots! I like things in neat rows too so I don’t know if I could try broadcasting seeds like that. We have a heavy soil that isn’t friendly to carrots but I recently discovered the Parisian Market variety and we’re going to give those a try this fall.
By: Jenny on August 23, 2012
at 10:11 am
Thanks Jenny. If you amend the soil with a lot of compost the carrots will be happy 🙂 Clay soil is tough on carrots but it sounds like the parisian ones will be a good choice.
By: oceannah on August 24, 2012
at 9:21 am
Yep that’s a shedload of carrots – is there such a thing as a carrot facepack?
By: crazytraintotinkytown on August 23, 2012
at 10:33 am
Hahah… think of the value in that~~ all the vit A seeping into your face 🙂
By: oceannah on August 24, 2012
at 9:23 am
Yum! I had a carrot tonight sautéed in coconut oils with innings and the such. You have amazing bounty there, I say some carrot and apple smoothies might be in order!!!
By: flamidwyfe on August 23, 2012
at 10:44 am
Sounds delish! I have to watch w/ too many carrots b/c of the sugar content…don’t eat too many. hahaha
By: oceannah on August 24, 2012
at 9:24 am
p.s. can you tell us about broadcast seeding?
By: flamidwyfe on August 23, 2012
at 10:45 am
Broadcast seeding = sprinkling the seeds evenly over the entire bed rather than in neat rows.
By: oceannah on August 24, 2012
at 9:25 am
Thanks!! I can’t wait to get home and plant!
By: flamidwyfe on August 24, 2012
at 9:57 am
Yay, in FL you should be able to grow all manner of goodies through the ‘winter’
*anna
By: oceannah on August 25, 2012
at 8:30 am
wWith carrots, I’m on the other side of the equation :(. WOW. What a haul. What is broadcast seeding? I was told it’s very hard to germinate carrots here with no rain unless you have a drip hose watering the seeded bed 3x per day. I can never get out 3x day to hand water with hose, so my carrots after the first crop in March, when we had rain, have never materialized. I’m trying carrots now in a pot on the front porch, and managed to get a few sprouts.- Kaye
By: latebloomershow on August 23, 2012
at 10:59 am
Kaye, we always seed our carrots w/ radishes co-mingled. The radishes break the soil for the carrots which are slow to germinate. Good luck!
By: oceannah on August 24, 2012
at 9:27 am
That is a LOT of carrots!!! What will you do with them, how do you store them??
By: tri-grandma-try on August 23, 2012
at 12:31 pm
we will eat most of them…share some of them. I learned the hard way to store them in plastic bags in the bottom of the fridge w/ some space in the bag open. One year a long while ago we stored them in paper bags in the barn fridge and then 3 days later when I went to get carrots for cooking, I found them all shriveled and limp. The fridge/bag combo sucked the moisture right out of them 😦
By: oceannah on August 24, 2012
at 9:31 am
Oh, my….that is a lot of carrots. Will you be able to do something with all of them before the go bad?
By: Julie on August 23, 2012
at 3:39 pm
Carrots on the menu and some will be shared out…realize this is a small portion of the harvest! If it were later in the season we could leave them in the ground, but since it is not, we’ll harvest them all.
By: oceannah on August 24, 2012
at 9:33 am
I’d never thought of seeding that way – but it makes sense, less carrots to think out in the end. Though thinning wasn’t a problem this year – the carrots didn’t germinate for us and we ended up with 6. That’s it, just 6 carrots.
By: Heidi @ lightlycrunchy on August 23, 2012
at 5:34 pm
drat 6 carrots?! I was a broadcast skeptic, but alas was proven wrong…The early phase of keeping the beds weeded were time consuming, though once the carrots established not needed.
By: oceannah on August 24, 2012
at 9:35 am
Wonderful bounty. Yep, Anna, looks like a win-win!
I did the “I was right” dance last weekend. On Thursday, I had dinner with a friend who has a tendency toward stubbornness. I mentioned how glad I was that the temps would be cooler on the weekend since I had to stack wood. I had checked the forecast on the Net very carefully to set up the date with the chopper.
“Oh, no, it’s going to be hotter! No, you’re wrong. It’ll be scorching.” she said.
I was surprised at how adamant she was – much more than usual.
On Saturday morning when I awakened, I was delighted to find grey skies and cooler temps. I went outside to water plants and in the middle of my yard, I did THE dance!
I won’t argue over silly stuff like that, but I certainly celebrate when I haven’t mis-read an article or looked at the wrong day’s forecast or used the other island’s ferry schedule! 😀
Turns out my dinner partner had declined a request for help. Her excuse? Torrid temps! So she had a heavy investment in a hot weekend. 😀
By: souldipper on August 23, 2012
at 6:52 pm
I’m so happy that you got your wood stacked. I guess it turned out that you were both “right”…or as I’ve heard said, there once was a prince who thought life was stupid, and for him, it was 🙂
By: oceannah on August 24, 2012
at 9:44 am
Hi Souldipper, today that comment looks offensive. Sorry… There’s been a lot going on here. What I meant by the prince who thought life was stupid saying is that we get we we expect, not that being right is stupid…poor choice of words on my part. apologies 🙂
*anna
By: oceannah on August 25, 2012
at 8:49 am
that’s a lota carrots!! yum!
By: smes9 on August 24, 2012
at 5:48 am
’tis Shannon! yumdiddly-I-dee-OH!
By: oceannah on August 24, 2012
at 9:45 am
ALWAYS eating. Sick of crow 😉
By: Sandra on August 25, 2012
at 1:09 pm
No kidding! Me 2
By: oceannah on August 27, 2012
at 7:07 pm