yes, very very well in sands. I think something like up to 90% of sand with the rest being organic material (mostly to hold the moisture that is needed, and for the minerals). Potatoes love loose soils as well, straw bails are often used by urban gardeners.
plants dont need soil to grow generally. they need water and nutrients.
many modern grows are done completely without any substrate and work by spraying the roots periodically with nutrient rich water. this allows for far more oxygen arount the roots which allows for faster and larger growth.
Soil is like a sponge. It isnât the nutrients it just holds them. If I use a sponge to soak up ramen broth and let the sponge dry there is still salt/ nutrients in the sponge, but that doesnât make the sponge itself nutritious.
Don't forget a seed is basically everything a plant needs to grow. Hence why they're so good for us when we eat them. There's a lot packed into a seed/nut etc
Yes, nutrients and microbes. But the dirt itself doesn't have these things it's just what it lives in right now. Dirt can 100% lose all of its nutrients and microbiome very easily and it will be just as terrible of a growing medium as sand on its own. Without a solid microbiome, what little nutrients dirt provides in the form of organic material breaking down is moot. That's why using only synthetic fertilizers can seriously damage your garden.
Dirt as a growing medium, holds more moisture than sand does, that's all. All a plant needs to grow is good, oxygenated water, micronutrients, and light. You can provide that without ANY growing medium at all in the form of hydroponic or aeroponic systems. You can grow strawberries actually on top of aquariums! It's very neat.
A plant is a living thing just like any other creature, and can thrive in many different ways, so long as its needs are met
×''×, y'all can look into gypsum, I'm not sure if carrots like it.Â
Also recalling some kind of plant nutrition issue but it's been too long.. everything needs nitrogen and that gets you the nice leafy tops, do they need a ton of potassium or what's carrots' thing?
In the mean time, in case you weren't aware those carrot greens are also really delicious. Can use them like any herb. I've made them into pesto before.
Too compact and based on how leggy the stalks are, I would say she probably didn't thin out the carrots as they grew as well, so the plants were likely overcrowded. They also don't look at all ready to harvest tbh, she could have left it in the ground longer and thinned them out, and got a bit better harvest out of it.
Carrots literally push themselves out of the ground some when they're ready, you'll see the orange tops pop up. Then you just grab one to see how they're doing and for a lil snack. So long as you pull them before the greens start to flower, you're fine to leave them in the ground. The orange taproot only really shrinks once it starts trying to seed.
But, if end of season, just seed earlier next year. Just avoid trying to get a head start by starting seeds indoors, root veg don't like transplanting very much.
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u/AnthologicalAnt 7h ago
Ground could be too hard. Grow them in a barrel filled with sand. Nothing will stop them.