carrots in egg cartons

[JRinPA]

This one really impressed me...starts seeds on heat and wet paper towels until they sprout. Then take egg carton, poke a hole through the bottom, fill with 1/2 potting soil and 1/2 sand or coir, lay a sprouted seed in each and lightly cover. Grow these out a bit and then just lay them at grade on a worked row and back fill a bit.

Boy oh boy I bet that works and I have thrown away so many paperboard egg cartons in the last 6 months.

[pondgardener]

@JRinPA Interesting! Thanks for sharing...

[eyegrotom]

I watched that video a couple of days ago. I just might give it a try.

[AKgardener]

Saw it on you tube as well was thinking about trying it

[JRinPA]

Personally I have a lot of trouble with outdoor germination so I was considering micro soil blocks this year. This just seems much better with the built weed suppression as well, and I love the spacing compared to rows with 6-8" between for room to hoe. The hardest part with this would manipulating wet carrot seeds that just sprouted.

I guess a craigslist egg carton want ad is the next step. I composted so many of these over the last year, that is somewhat annoying. And the cheapest eggs now are Brown eggs coming in plastic trays.

I think youtube might be getting more useful I also found some reasonable cardboard box potato beds videos. Probably keep voles out of them fairly easily too, with just a flat sheet of 1/2" hw cloth underneath, and no need to dig at all.

[JRinPA]

So I've gathered some paperboard egg cartons and sprouted some carrot seed. I will say that a germination chamber from a Plastic Egg Carton really works well. Two layers of paper towel, then layer of cotton t shirt material on top. Holes punched with the tears up so water can escape a bit. On 77F heat mat. My seed is a couple years old and there is very close to 100% germination that I would never approach in the ground. That is a new trick for me, using cotton rag on top.

Transferring those sprouts to paper egg cartons, now that is a lot of work. I guess I did 6 dozen, just a single in each. We shall see. Worrying about the direction of the root at that stage? Is that an actual concern?

I have 10x that many sprouts left over. The old bag was an ounce, so I started plenty. Not sure how I want to use them. Ideally I'd like to grow carrots in pots, since I don't have deep sandy beds that are rock free. So I may go by another video, Home Grown Veg, and use some of those sprouts that way. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PM2fdxPmks0

[rossomendblot]

Worrying about the direction of the root at that stage? Is that an actual concern?

I don't think so. When I grow parsnips I 'chit' them on wet paper towel, then use tweezers to place them in the soil. It doesn't seem to matter which way the root is pointing, it will just follow gravity. Not sure I'd have the patience to do the same with carrots.

[JRinPA]

First ones are in next to some overwintered spinach. I picked up about 14 or so 30 pack boxes this weekend. I started ten of those today with sprouted seed from...Friday night I started it, I believe. They are the ones to use. Very easy to stack four of them deep and pierce all four with the rounded butt of a tweezers. I just wondering now where the tweezers got to, hope I didn't lose it.

I figured I'd start them like this and see who wants to try some at the comm garden.

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[eyegrotom]

Please keep us updated on the progress of Carrot grow out

[JRinPA]

I'm probably much better off putting 3-4 dry seed in each and wetting them down well in a greenhouse...tweezering sprouts was not terrible, but, in the first 6-1/2 dozen (got planted today) I probably 2 dozen blank cells that I put more sprouted seed in before setting out today. So not great success rate, 60-70 percent. But getting the big cartons, just to poke a hole, fill with compost, and sprinkle dry seed - I think I could hack thinning them with scissors after a few weeks, better than trying to manipulate a single wet, sprouted seed.

And I see today I did not poke a 1 cm deep finger hole, I just put nosed the tweezer about 1 cm deep and opened it while twisting and extracting. Most of the time the seed released, on the second tweezer at least. The first tweezer would not let them go! The roots kept sticking to the tweezer jaws, it was bizarre.

[MrBig46]

Despite the problems with sowing the germinated seed, I'll give it a try with the egg salaries this year. I won't be rooting for carrots like this, but root parsley, which sprouts really poorly in the flower bed. The lines then look like notes on a drum. The SEMO company even offers pre-germinated seeds of this parsley, which, however, last only two months and are hideously expensive. I tried it once, it really germinated, but I had to tear it, which I really don't like. As I observe, almost no one grows this parsley in the garden anymore and prefers to buy it in the store, but for a lot of money.
Vladimír

[JRinPA]

I think I grew root parsley one year...Hamburg, I think it was called. There is a Hamburg in PA, about an hour drive or less, and I thought Hamburg Rooted Parsley was a PA Dutch parsley. It didn't seem much different than parsnips, after it was up. The seed is different though. I grew it in the backyard raised bed, I can picture it next to eggplant that year.

Parsnips are hard to germinate as well. I think I will use some of these egg cartons for parsnips, yet. I haven't like eating the parsnips much the last few years...maybe I should go to back to the rooted parsley...