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Carrots are fickle, but late April to mid-May is the ideal time to sow and you can go on sowing until mid-July.
First check your seeds are not duff - germinate a pinch in the airing cupboard on damp kitchen tissue in an airtight box - no or poor germination buy more seeds. By law carrot seed only has to have 65 percent germination so don't be surprised if many don't germinate (and much seed sold has less).
Then go outside. Water the carrot patch if it is dry and leave overnight. Rake your soil until it is fine and crumbly. Like digestive biscuits that have been in your jeans pocket of an hour or two. Then take a broomhandle or similar and press it lengthways onto the soil. Make an indentation or groove that is about half the thickness of the broomhandle. Sprinkle seeds along groove with about a fingers width between the seeds.
Cover with potting compost -- does not matter which - and press with your palm or rake head to make it firm so that the seeds are pressed firmly against the moist soil at the base of the groove.
Leave for 21 days. Water if the potting compost looks dry.
Place a saucer upside down besides the row with a spoonful of breakfast cereal beneath it. Check each morning. If more than five slugs present apply slug controls.
Covering with fleece is a good precaution against carrot fly that is on the wing now and will provide warmth to speed germination.
Good luck
Boggy
Beware the bat-eared bogweevil
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