If you look at my avatar here is an example of a home made carrot grower/transplanter.

It consists of two seed tray lids, a plastic board made from signmakers board which fits neatly inside the small lip provided, the board is drilled with holes to take those party type sample throw away cups, drill a hole in the bottom of each cup leaving a small ledge to retain the compost so it doesn't fall through and into the water below.

The lid is another lid basically, as the carrot grows in the soil it reaches downtowards and into the warm water below which is heated and steralized by the suns Uv's and effectively hydro/soil grows and regulates its own water needs also keeping the compost moist.

When the roots reach the water and grow double the length of the tops, simply remove the plug from the cut and into a ready made dibber hole so it fits nicely, make the hole slightly deeper than the whole plug/root length and drop it in the hole, then water it in which takes the soil and root down in a straight line, job done.

This and many more atkwright stuff I have to share in albums when they are born.

This system works a treat on carrots which are always pretty tricky to.transplant.

The Apprentice wrote:
Thats a pretty slick device, simple, and extremely effective by the sound of it.

As you say carrots are effectively a non desirable choice for transplanting, as they are difficult enough to get germinated and going in the garden. To be able to get them growing in the greenhouse, and transplantable as well is a major boost.


This system checks both boxes, and is simple and cheap. fair play to you on that one apprentice. I like it a lot.

griswald

Here is the one I have been using for carrots for the last two seasons and which my own home version is based upon but mine has individually seperate tubes which makes planting on a tad easier.

www.suttons.co.uk/Gardening/Garden+Equip...or_572871.htm#572871

I have always sown carrots in situ and as you know, not every carrot can establish a good unhindered root that way.

That really does look like a winning way of getting some prize carrots going!


Do you have lots of these for a maincrop or do you staggered sowings, or something else?

I normally use the small cardboard degradeable pots, for those plants that are finnicky about transplanting. But they are tricky from a watering point of view, and become more delicate as time goes on.
But that is an excellent thing to have in the early part of the growing season. It gives you good monitoring ability to keep a close eye on its progress.

What did you use prior to that system, was it old school method. Plant loads and thin them out.

griswald

dubmeup wrote:
The system really does work well, we sew the first batch and as soon as those pluge go in after the last frost they are already three inches high then we sew a second lot and plant another row diagonally at the same time in between the two other rows, this way they get some protection and have a hot spot in the middle.

With.the lift off tray you can keep an eye on the roots below, if you buy that ready made one don,t use the auto eject system or it will cut off the roots that have gone down into the water tray below. The cover has a nifty addition with rows of prickers to make the indentations for the seeds so they are all the same depth.

Griswald wrote:
The planter works well with all long rooted vedge including the most difficult of all the parsnip these buggers die on you soon as look at them, so we plant them in small squares and place s plastic tray over the top to lift the soil temp to get the seeds germinated away.

Before we used to lay down on a long board and sew each seed individually in a squre into a well sieved to two inches deep patch again with a clear lid to raise the soil temp.
Carrots have such a high energy value its worth the effort, if you want trouble free carrots find all the cow parsley nearby and zap it because the carrot root like over wintering in these and other umbelifers.

I suppose you use spring or well water as opposed to that mains poison coming out of the tap. I have noticed that its easier to kill off young seeldings by over watering with tap water, than it is in well water. Well water definitely has a more positive influence on plants in general.

griswald

And rain water too. We have several butts around the plot and all watering is done from them. We literally soak the seedlings and don't get any damping off or anything to speak of...

dubmeup wrote:
True.

It would be interesting to see a complete breakdown of the chemicals that are in tap water. I,d say that would be a scary document.

Griswald wrote:
We use RO water not tap water to start all our seeds this way, then create chaos water as the biodynamics do in a small copper planter with a copper rod and let the water sit in the windows in a glass pyrex jug so the sun steralizes it.

After sieving the compost/soil mix 50/50 through a flour sieve we warm the apparatus on top of the stove before planting the seeds always at night, then we place the tubs over the stove until the seedlings start turning for the window light, that's when you know they have become aware of the rhythm.

After we see that they go out into the green house and shoot towards the light.

The secret is in the very fine growing medium and constant under heating, this enables the seeds to us all their stored energy to push out of the way the smaller particles much easier, the finer the better, leaf mould is by far the best for bringing on seedlings but we never have enough of it so mix it 50/50 with soil.

Oh and before I forget the seed tray always sits on a wooden shelf so at night the heat from the greenhouse acts like a heat sync and rertains the twilight heat, think of them as babies and how you treat them when they are being breast fed.

Griswald wrote:
This why we RO and have for years now, after a few monthe of using RO I can taste tap water like a bleached blanket it is overpowering if you get a cup of tea from someones elses tap.
Rain water also has its beasties depending on where you live, the used to be a factory in Cumbria called the Marshon works near Workington, on some days the pollution was terrible and very little grew around that place, there was a dead zone for miles around.

sellafields in cumbria.. yum yum.

also, chaos water. i want to drink it.

batou wrote:
Lol, take a vacation in and around St Bees for a week and on your return the locals will spot the distictive irredecscence of your skin at night, you can also bring back a bottle of tap water to use as a table lamp at night.

On the chaotic water, place water into a bucket start striring it in the same direction as your water goes down the plug hole and after a couple of minuites quickly start turning the opposite direction and in a week the artificial glow will dissapear

lol thanks, maybe i'll try that on my plants tonight