Tell me how to grow Carrots, Leeks & Onions succesfully!! Please!!

[josoaps]

I am new to gardening and really really excited about getting started ASAP!
I have today purchased my Carrot, Leek & Onion seeds and am this evening going to get stuck in to sowing them in seed trays for them to start their lives in my kitchen window!!

As I live in a rented property, I dont really want to start digging the garden up and planting, as you never know when you may be asked to end your tenancy for the landlord to sell up!! So everything in my garden is in pots.
The garden is L shaped, with the garage to the right, and the L being formed behing the garage. It is a south facing garden and as the area behing the garage gets forgotten about, I thought this was an ideal area to start my vegetable crop! I have purchased a container today to start growing potatoes, and I cant wait to get started on them!!
What containers would be most suitable for growing Carrots, Onions & Leeks (seperately of course). How deep/Wide do they ideally need to be, when should I Plant them out after sowing them indoors initially, and my biggest concern is knowing when they are ready to be dug up and will be ready for eating.
As you can see, I am totlly clueless, but am really looking forward to detting started on this! I never realised grdening is so exciting until recently!! :

Any help and advice would be hugeley appreciated!!

Jo

[Two_Sheds]

You don't want to be sowing carrots into seed trays.
They have a tap root (they are a tap root) so you can't transplant them.

Unless ... you sow them into a loo roll, and then plant the whole thing into the garden.

If you're growing in pots - just sow direct into your pot (which will obviously be deeper than the finished length of your carrot)

there ya go; clear as mud, no?

[Capsid]

Well carrots should be sown direct into the ground, they won't like being transplanted. At this time of year, the ground needs to be a bit warmer for them to germinate so covering the soil with black plastic or fleece or a cloche for a few weeks before sowing will help. I grow some of my carrots in a big bucket about 3' tall as this discourages carrot fly (they fly close to the ground). A deep container would probably work just as well. Carrots can be pulled when small and taste delicious or you can let them get bigger and harvest in the autumn but this depends on the variety.

Onions and leeks can be transplanted when they get to a decent size, I think a depth of about 1' minimum for leeks. Onions can be less but the critical thing for container veg is not to let them dry out so be vigilant with the watering and feeding.

Onions can be harvested in June/July or when their tops start to bend over. Leeks are harvested after the frost and right through the winter, I still have some in the ground now.

[josoaps]

Thank you both for your advice! I need it!! lol x

[Mike and Louise]

From what I have learnt you shouldn't sow ANY root veg into a pot for later transplanting.

We don't grow leeks but for carrots and onions (or in our case spring onions) they need to be sown in the ground where they are to grow to maturity.
If you disturb the roots by transplanting them you will damage the root.

For carrots we make sure that there is enough deep soil for the roots to grow down into. Depending on the carrot type, the soil could be as deep and 10".

We only grow 'intermediates', carrots about 4" long, so we don't need the soil to be too deep.
Also, some people and books will state that carrots hate compost and manure. Well we only use compost and manure for our veg beds and have had carrots galore each year. Even the carrots we have grown in pots with nothing but multipurpose compost have grown well.

[selfraising]

Hi
you might also want to try parmex carrots. They are round and can be pulled when they are golf ball sized. I have sown them in old vegetable crates lined with perforated bin bags and then compost. They did very well. They also do well if sown directly in pots and don't need to be sown as deep as 'long' carrots

[Two_Sheds]

From what I have learnt you shouldn't sow ANY root veg into a pot for later transplanting.
...carrots and onions ... need to be sown in the ground where they are to grow to maturity.
If you disturb the roots by transplanting them you will damage the root.

that's absolutely true, but onions aren't a root crop.
They are very successful transplanted ... I do it every year. In fact my yields are much higher than if I sow direct.

[Mike and Louise]

that's absolutely true, but onions aren't a root crop.
They are very successful transplanted ... I do it every year. In fact my yields are much higher than if I sow direct.

Oh right. I thought onions were classed as a root crop. We don't grow actual onions, only spring onions, and our book says not to transplant them.

[Two_Sheds]

Yes, you can transplant spring onions really successfully. Sow into a pot indoors, transplant outside when they are big enough to handle.
It's a good way to get them started, because they can be tricky to grow

[greenfingers007]

Hi all,

On the subject of carrort growing I have a question, I read somewhere that you can germinate parsnips on a tray in your windowsill then place in position when shoot is about 1 cm in length, would this be the case also for carrots? just a thought, I will be experimenting with this this year so will let you know, but just thought that someone may know for definate.

Thanks in advance.

[Two_Sheds]

you can germinate parsnips on a tray in your windowsill ... would this be the case also for carrots?

Carrot seeds are really too tiny to do this with.
I sow mine into loo rolls, then plant the whole thing in the ground
If I sow direct into the soil, the slugs eat the emerging seedlings

[gojiberry]

I always start the season with pot grown carrots, I have abot six on the go at the moment with 3 already sprouted. Can't sow direct as it is to cold especially with 2in of snow on the ground. I use old Austin rose pots they are square and about 8in deep ideal for early carrots. I usually start them off with some gentle heat but as soon as they appear I move them to a cooler part of the greenhouse.

Ian

[lynda66]

well as a totally failed leek grower last year (one leek from 3 packets) i have decided on different tactics this year, i spread them out on wet kitchen roll and put them on top of the boiler, then when they germinated, i transferred them to compost in square fibre pots and left them under a plastic cover on the windowsill, and amazingly i have now got ermmm 2 trays of tiny leek seedlings with 3 in each pot .... i'm determined to get more than one leek this year lol

have also done the same with onions, and the spring onions have come up too

carrots, i still have a bed full from last year, which hopefully will be ready in a couple of months, i just spread them out on a square metre of ground and cover them with shop compost, had some lovely carrots last year, though my ground is clay about 6 inches down, and there were a few odd shaped ones, but most were fine ..... gonna add some extra compost before planting this year, to make the bed deeper before they hit the stones bricks and lumps of rock

[Flummery]

I find the secret of success is to grow thngs you don't like! I have wonderful crops of parsnips - which I heartily dislike. Good thing the rest of the family love them.

Good advice above. You can grow a few carrots in a deep pot for an early crop but out in the soil is best.

[Eyren]

my biggest concern is knowing when they are ready to be dug up and will be ready for eating.

Carrots will start showing their "shoulders" above the soil when they are big enough to eat - just leave them until they are the thickness you want. Onions should be harvested in late summer when their foliage goes yellow - leeks, like carrots, you just dig up when they are big enough to be worth eating. IIRC, potatoes start making decent-sized tubers when they flower - Bob Flowerdew recommends giving them a really good water at this point. After that, dig a few out to see if they are big enough for your liking (exact timing depends on the variety).

All the plants you mention are quite slow-growing - leeks are sown in early spring for the following winter, onions at the same time for a late summer harvest, and I found that my carrots took ages to go from spaghetti thickness to something worth picking (though that may just have been the dull wet summer we had!). I would suggest getting hold of something a bit faster growing as well, to keep up your enthusiasm!

How about some courgettes, or lettuce, or runner beans? Our allotment secretary, who became too old and frail to manage a plot himself, had a trough of runner beans (with cane supports) up against his back wall. Not only do you get the beans, but the flowers are very pretty (runners were originally grown as ornamentals, before it was discovered that the pods are edible). Courgettes would need a big pot, but they grow fast and are hard to get wrong! Just don't sow them too early, as they are frost-sensitive.

Hope this helps, and happy planting!