Maincrop carrots

Sorry for resurrecting this thread - it seemed better to do this than start another. Hope you don't mind me picking your collective brains.

I have some Autumn King carrot seed I want to sow to overwinter carrots in the ground if poss. First frost here is around 17 October. We hit minus 9 ºC by the end of November at night, though daytime temps are mild by UK standards. The coldest period of the year is January to February (between -12 and -17 ºC at night, though daytime temps are anything from 6 to 21 ºC).

When should I sow these seeds by and am I being optimistic about overwintering them in the ground?

Thanks for any help.

With those temperatures, I wouldn't consider it.

You would have to dig them and store them some where dry and cool, perhaps in a clamp, or in a box of compost.

Do the soil temperatures get as low as -12, if the daytime temperatures are quite high?

The soil rarely freezes. When it does, it's usually superficial and thaws quite quickly during the day. I grow parsnips quite successfully (when they germinate and when the dogs don't run all over them...).

That was Harvest on the BBC mum.  I remember it being on in the background and they had deep layers of mulch and I think  tarps on the fields 

Which programme did we watch recently folks, where the farmers mulched and covered their carrot crops so they could lift them in the winter. Would that method help?

Thanks MoS. For sure it would. So when would you sow them? My veg growing book suggests maincrop carrots need 18 to 24 weeks, which makes me think now would be about right given the date of our first frost. But the seed packet instructions and other threads on this site seem to suggest they can be sown much later. If I sow Autumn King now, are they likely to go woody?

I'd try the end of June, it's when I'd sow mine, and your first frost is about the same time as here.