What I'm Gardening This Week: Carrots! ⋆ Growing Up Kemper

I hope you all had a wonderful Easter weekend and you’r recovering from your candy coma with a little more candy. 🙂 If you’re looking for a way to clear your countertops and baskets, try out my Candy Bar Pie that is just delicious and easy to make for this slow recovery day.

This week, I’m working through simple steps in my garden, including:

Weeding my Landscape Beds
Watering during our dry spell
Planting carrots

Weeding Landscape Beds

Dandelions are popping up just about everywhere in our landscape right now and it’s time to get out the trough or even some of our natural weed killers to get a grip on their spread. I loved the ideas from this Real Simple article on All-Natural, Homemade Weed Killers That Really Work. Full of simple tricks like using newspaper or a recipe of a homemade spray with ingredients on hand. I’m not a fan of using Round-Up or over the counter sprays due to the high use of chemicals in areas that my kids and dogs play on a daily basis. After whipping up this spray, I’m ready to get a little sun and use a little elbow grease to rid these pesky weeds.

Watering

We had quite the rainstorm at the end of last week, dumping near 2″ just in a few hours. It was great to get that heavy soak for my flowers and plants, but now we are entering a week of full sun, 70s and no rain in the 7 day forecast. Most of my vegetables I’ve planted so far require about 1-2″ per week, so during these dry spells, don’t forget to pull out the hose or watering cans and help those little seedlings along this week.

Don’t know how much rain you’re getting each week? Snag my favorite rain gauge to help measure how much you’re getting each week!

Planting Carrots

Don’t know if there is a simpler veggie to plant in your garden than a yummy carrot! Make a small trough, sprinkle your seeds, cover, water, and watch them grow! If you’ve read through these posts each week and thought, “Nope, just a little too much work.” This week is for you! Here are my very simple, anyone-can-do-it tips to plant some carrots this season!

Work your soil to the depth of your full-grown carrots – check your seed packet for approximate depth
Carrots prefer loose, well-drained soil in a sunny spot and no rocks
After working the soil, make a small trough with your fingers about 1/2″ deep.
Sprinkle seeds lightly along trough and gently cover with soil
Water thoroughly and continue watering heavily until greens sprout about the ground – continue watering 1-2″ a week
Carrots will keep in the garden until well after the first frost right up until the ground freezes in winter. In milder climates you can leave carrots in the garden and harvest all winter long! Pick as you’d like – baby carrots are just as great as full grown ones!

Have a wonderful last full week of April and happy gardening!