Carrots not germinating.

[Snoop Puss]

^That's devotion. They're minute seeds.

[AmateurOne]

Could there be slugs eating the seedlings before you even get a chance to see them?

No slugs. Big beer slop trap nearby. I’ll check this again though

[jackarmy]

It is a bit time consuming tbf

[chris_m]

One trick I've seen recommended in France is to sow radish seeds alongside. The radishes come up quicker and provide shade for the seeds as they germinate.

I did it last year for parsnips - but not so much to provide shade for the seeds but more to show where I'd planted them so I didn't pull out the wrong thing when weeding ;-)

I haven't bothered this year as a) I now know what parsnip seedlings look like and, b) I'm not all that fussed about eating radishes.

[annie8]

I sowed my carrots in the beds good few weeks ago now and still not being much coming through. Same issue with beetroot and potatoes. Think the weather has just been a bit cold for them. Am keeping sowing and hoping they are just a bit slow.

[burnie]

My Eskimo carrots were sown on the 17th of April and are just starting to show.

[bario1]

I’ll be sowing my carrots and beetroot this weekend. Just been too cold so far this year.

[Sylvan]

Just went to check the 8ft row of carrots I sowed on 14th April.
Nine of them have finally germinated, so don't despair yet!

[Growlady]

Might be slugs?

Help!

Sowed two separate lots of carrots over the last 5 weeks , last lot about two weeks ago and only had four germinate.

Sowed them direct into new beds which admittedly the soil is quite fertile however not sure how that would affect it.

Should I resow or give up?

Carrots seem to like a bit of a sandy soil, so I grow mine in big fish boxes in a polytunnel, mix a bit of sand into the compost/soil mix I use (nothing fussy, just anything I have got) and then sow the seed by putting it into a jar of sand, giving it a shake and then sprinkling it all over the top of the compost. I use an old Canderel jar because it has a sprinkler lid on it but you could use a flour dredger or something similar. I don't cover the seed with compost. I just water it in. It germinates fine but you have to watch that you don't wash all of the seed into one corner when you water it. However, if you have had only a few germinate with your method, are you sure you don't have slugs? The little tiny black ones are hard to see but are voracious feeders. I have just found 8 under a tile on my beds and I had no idea they were there. Now I know what happened to my spinach seedlings. The carrots were safe because the fish boxes were raised up on bricks I think. Think you could resow using the sand method because I also think slugs don't like to cross sand. Good luck.

[Vince G]

Optimum temperature for carrot germination is about 15 degrees. Sowed mine about a month ago, a mixture of old and new seed, and the soil at the lottie is ideal - sandy and this plot was mucked 2 years ago for brassicas. They poked through in the April heatwave, but even in the near Mediterranean climate of Suffolk they're struggling to kick on.

Disappointing as I usually manage 3 sowings:

Late March, mid-June and late August. The latter supplying us with carrots until I sow the next year in late March, so we're only really missing carrots for about 3 months of the year.