By Umar Nsubuga
Setting up a vegetable garden in your backyard is a step in the right direction for anyone interested in improving their health through a better diet consisting of fresh vegetables.
Vegetables, like carrots, are some of the foods dieticians recommend that we should have on our daily menu.
One way of ensuring a steady supply of these carrots, irrespective of seasonal changes, is to grow them in your backyard. You do not need much space or expensive equipment to get started.
Swizen Wamala, a resident of Kyarutale Village, Kagadi district and a carrot farmer in the area.
He says carrots can grow well in loam soils.
He says the soil should be kept moist for at least the first 10 days because they take longer to germinate.
He adds that dig shallow drills around 2-3cm deep on a sunny dry day and sow the seeds thinly.
You can mix the seeds with a handful of sharp sand and then sow seeds with the sand.
After sowing, cover the seeds with soil and then gently firm the surface.
According to Wamala, the soil should be kept moist for at least the first 10 days because they take longer to germinate.
When the seeds have germinated and started showing their first true leaves, thin the seedlings to 5cm or two inches between plants.
Sharon Naluwende, a nutritionist at Mulago hospital says carrots are about 87% water, carrot is one of the healthiest vegetables yet one of the least grown in the country.
A basket of carrots ranges between sh10, 000 to sh50, 000 depending on the basket size.
When buying in small quantities, six small carrots cost sh1, 000 and big ones go for sh2, 000 in different markets around Kampala.
