Growing Carrots

I've learned that carrots mostly fail because they are planted too deeply, or because, planted sufficiently shallow, they wash out before they sprout. Here's what I do to avoid these problems:

I prepare a bed of sandy, rock free soil+compost to a depth of 1 foot, water it well and rake it smooth. Then I use a dibble to drill a very shallow (1/4") hole every 2 inches. I place two seeds in each hole. Then I cover the entire row with a length of 1x4.

I leave this in place for TWO WEEKS. At the end of two weeks, I lift up the 1x4 and generally have a nice straight row of little carrot seedlings, sufficiently rooted to escape the danger of being washed away when I water.

The germination rate appears to be very high with this technique, so with new, fresh seed, I'll chance it and only plant one seed per drill.

I try to avoid thinning by planting seeds at the final plant spacing, and with new/fresh commerical seed, germination rates are so good that there is not a lot of reason to overseed. But I do overseed if I am using up last year's seed supply.

When I do need to thin, I clip the unwanted plant at the soil level with a small pair of scissors. This avoids damage to the root system of the adjacent plant, and I have learned to do this with anything that needs thinning.

In my greenhouse and later in my kitchen garden, I plant short rows of carrots, lettuce, radishes and spinach among and between the tomato and pepper plants. By the time the tomatos and peppers begin to take up space, the earliest lettuce, et c. has been picked and eaten and I am taking carrots from my main crop in the outdoor garden.