BeePelteaux
Really important info, because I need guinea pig food, and carrots is my bulk guinea pig food in cool weather. For warm weather, they have plenty of banana leaves, cucumbers, peppers, and everything else. But in winter, my piggies need carrots and parsley and other leafy greens, and winter squash i have sitting around from the previous fall. I really need those carrots in bulk as a staple, so this video matters to me.
Thanks so much for making it! My piggies will benefit from it.
Guinea pigs are GREAT garden companions, as long as you can control where they go in the garden. The ideal setup is to have rotated fenced areas, and have the guinea pigs on the area where you're going to plant next. They are wonderful at eating everything down to bare dirt and leaving lovely manure and hay mulch (gotta feed them hay. The tiller makes rows SO easy on a plot your piggies just came off of. And then the piggies are very happy moving on to the weedy next plot that needs preparing for next season.
Closing the loop with animals and plants working together is wonderful if you can do it. Plants provide food for the herbivores (guinea pigs, and guinea pigs provide manure and ground clearing ahead of planting. The soil benefits greatly, because wherever my guinea pig shelters are concentrated, all you have to do is scratch back the fluff with your hand, and there are plentiful composting worms and fungi.
Soil health, plant health, animal health, all in a big endless loop. Carrots feed that loop. (and bananas, and parsley, and peppers, and cucumbers, and canna leaves, and arrowroot leaves, etc)
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notspm9157
When I soak toilet paper and then come back to it like 30 - 60 minutes later I always get the smell of almost bleach. So I have always suspected that in the manufacturing process there are additional chemicals that remain as residual on the paper. That would explain as well why you got such a bad result with it (not that it kept it too moist but the chemicals that inhibited the growing processes. It also means that if there are chemicals it also could have leeched far enough to the others which is why pre-soak and corn starch worked so bad (when pre-soaked really shouldn't have been that far off the control etc)
Other notes, you need to redo the experiment as there is too great of a variability and an issue because if you look at the trend the outer two worked in both buckets but the middle two failed. That could mean there is also a difference in regards to the condition that it was in. The edges of them would have all been exposed to lets say a different temp than the ones in the middle. So that might be an issue
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tealkerberus748
I'd love to see you repeat this experiment at different times of year, and maybe even collab with people in different climate zones - and mention the daytime and overnight temperatures and humidity for each repetition. I think the cardboard and vermiculite options would be winners in hot and dry conditions. Also growing the radishes on either side of the carrots rather than in the same row would fix the problem of them disrupting the soil around the carrot seedlings, but for that you would need to allocate more space in the tub for that option.
The versions with a whole lot of dead biomass buried in the soil do seem to be a fail, though. I know plenty of plants that love growing in an active compost heap, but it looks like carrots aren't so keen on that.
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ronjab4586
These results are so validating. I only can access the community garden where I garden in every other day and not at all on the weekends. 9b, so I sow carrots in hot fall for a winter harvest.
I used to cover with cardboard and had decent result but one time I forgot one of the cardboard pieces (I usually do multiple little squares all over the place. I forgot that I even sowed seeds in that spot since the cardboard I wanted to put on that square fell behind the raised bed, so I didn't have the visual reminder.
A week later, when I took the other cardboard pieces off (I always had poorer outcome when cardboard was on longer, I noticed that little uncovered carrot patch. It had by far the highest germination rate I've been doing no extra steps ever since.
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bencha27
Interesting experiment with some surprising results! I thought the vermiculite would do well because the last two years I used straw and had good results. I sowed the carrots directly on top of the soil (without digging a furrow, covered with 1/2 of straw, and kept them watered. I don't know the germination rate, partly because I kind of freely scattered the seeds, and I also got too busy to thin them, but by harvest time the bed was densely packed with carrots (of all sizes lol. I'm happy with how well it's worked thus far, especially given how little work it takes (no digging, no need to check for germination because they just grow through the straw, and they are already mulched through harvest.
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epic_gardening
Nice demo/experiment however, it would have been nice if one of the 8 ways that were done with pelleted seed. (with cardboard or light cover w/coir)
Pro's,
Generally, we have germination in 7-10 days. The purposes of the pelletized seed are better germination as the coating helps keep the seed 's moist
and is much easier to sow. The ones that don't germinate are easily seen and can be reseeded.
Con's,
Excess seed doesn't keep well. Don't expect good germination year 2 with left over seed.
We plant Bolero pelletized and they have never let us down. Nantes variety, straight, 6-8s, and some reaching up to2s at the shoulders. Keeps well.
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hollykitchens2381
I've had excellent germination multiple times by broadcast sowing in my 3' x 15' long beds (similar to Charles Dowding's no dig garden beds) and not covering the seeds with dirt at all, but just a couple inches of either wheat straw or pine straw (it's worked with both) and watering everyday or every other day so the soil never dries out, then after two weeks when I see the tiny sprouts, I pull back most of the straw so they can continue in full sun. I'm in zone 8a, so I only do this fall through spring right now cause I hand water, if I had irrigation lines, it could probably be done in summer too.
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sharonknorr1106
Thank you for this. I was going to do a little experiment of my own this year. I usually just cover the planted seeds with straw and they do ok with attention to watering. Was going to try a later planting covered with some shade cloth so can still water, but protects from sun that gets pretty intense here. The coffee grounds thing sounds interesting - may try that as well. I love garden experiments. It may be that your control did so well because it was growing under pretty ideal circumstances with a nice soil mix and not too much heat/sun to begin with and I assume were getting watered.
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htarvis
Interesting! I wonder if the toilet paper version didn't work as well because of the thickness of the flour glue and the fact that the paper was folded over. I use a combination of two methods. I make a seed tape with tissue paper (the gift wrapping type) and Elmer's glue. Just a tiny dot of glue will hold the seed. I plant in furrows, water and cover with a tarp. I usually get pretty high germination. The seed tape is nice, so I don't have to thin. Instead of cutting the tissue paper into strips, I've also just used the whole thing to make a seed sheet - it makes planting a large area very easy!
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Kami-ej9su
I'm with the folks asking for a repeat of this experiment. Not only for fall harvest to see the effect of different weather, but also at this time of year with similar weather again because repeating experiments is how we know the results we got on one occasion weren't merely a fluke. Jacques was surprised by these results due to previous and repeated success with one of the methods that didn't perform well in this instance of the experiment. I think that thread is worth pursuing. Science isn't just a one-and-done thing, after all, it is a continuous process in pursuit of knowledge.
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suburbanhomestead
So for the cornstarch, the seeds also need to be starting to pre sprout (white roots just peeking) after they spent a few days in a moist jar in the perfect temperature. The idea is to get them growing immediately upon hitting the ground. Otherwise the starch is more a vehicle for mold. I think pre-germinating carrots in paper towel and placing them with tweezers doesn’t work well (besides being ridiculous work)because it damages the very fragile roots. That being said I would say covering the seed is probably the best when it comes to effort reward in real world scenarios.
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dubcindub15
I germinated the carrots in water first, then transplanted them into a 30 cell cardboard egg tray onto their forever home. It keeps the spacing good and even, and the cardboard breaks down once it's covered and damp enough. Transplanting the wet germinated seeds is a torturous task though, this year I'll do 2 or 3 dry seeds per cell and prick out the smallest ones after germination. It works brilliant if you're restricted on space too, plus if you want to grow bigger varieties you can just grow in every 2nd cell and still have equally perfect spacing for them to grow.
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JameyReads
Something I discovered in my own garden last season: I used a bagged compost that had too many wood chips (imo. I did sift out the larger ones, but it still made for a very loose soil and I worried that the extra wood hindered plant growth. While most of my plants didn’t like this soil (radishes, beets, tomatoes, my carrots absolutely loved it. Maybe because it was so loose I had the best carrot germination and harvest I have ever had to date. I am tempted to use this soil specifically for my carrots and try another method for my other vegetables this spring.
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chstoney
Interesting. I tried carrots for the first time last year. I used the pre-soak method because my father never managed to grow them the standard way before me. And I had about 90% germination rate (and later on, I had 20% loss of harvest to moles. It is impossible to get a definite conclusion from such a small sample, IMO, all the differences could be within the margin of error. Except for the corn starch methods, those look conclusive.
I did notice one thing, though - even with the pre-soak method, some plants seemed a bit delayed compared to others.
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rpdx3
The cardboard was too light. A plank works better because it’s heavy and keeps the seeds in contact with the soil, and keeps the water from evaporating from the soil. I do mine with a board and also put a couple of bricks on the board to make sure there’s good contact. I always get tons of carrots, unless using old seed with low germ (as you guys pointed out.
Also, to reach significance, you’d have to run this experiment a couple of times.
Otherwise very interesting. Some methods I’ve never heard of, nor would ever try!
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t. r. everstone7
Oddly (or maybe not, I've never had a problem getting carrots started. It's getting the roots big enough to be worth eating that has been my issue, but I've only tried this fall and past spring; so, it's not like I have really failed. They just were mostly smaller than I was going for. But this spring will be a new attempt, hopefully better than before. It's cool to see a test mostly confirm that I'm probably starting the seeds just fine and only need to work on the later watering or something like that.
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adamjchafe
Great idea, even if not a perfect double blind. I like the cardboard/board cover for use in the community garden if you can't keep an eye on the seeds to keep them moist.
Bucket carrots are extremely popular here as well (5b, North East Canada) and some people get huge harvests that way. I am going to try it with pelleted carrots this year, and use the bucket lid as the moisture lock (As jsnd37 mentioned in these comments.
My real question; what is a good soil mix for carrots in containers
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Dave_D.
I was growing carrots in grow bags. One year, I did sprout them on a paper towel and then moved them one by one to the bag, which worked fine, but as you said, was a fair bit of work. I was tempted to just set the entire paper towel on top of the medium in the bag and cover lightly (like a seed tape, but I wasn't sure if the roots would be able to poke through the paper towel. I should have just tried it, but didn't. Still curios if it would work, then it would cut out half the work.
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ryanfitzalan8634
something i have heard noted about vermiculite: vermiculite does pull up and hold water, but whether or not it gives water back to the surrounding environment or makes it available to be pulled back out of it, is perhaps not true or misunderstood. Its a form of baked clay, and typically those molecules pull water in and only shed water via evaporation, So Vermiculite may actualy be harmful instead of helpful but perhaps some research shows more details and suggests otherwise
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betsyoman7173
The reason to plant radishes with carrots is simply to mark the row so that you can tell where the carrots will be! They won't help with germination. You only put one radish every few inches, perhaps 6-9 inches. That way most of your carrot seeds won't be disturbed when you pull up the radishes. And by the way, the radish greens are edible too, though I've never done it. I would feel very successful if I had a 50% germination rate on a small seed like carrots.
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