maincrop carrots ?

[yummyveggies]

Am I too late to sow main crop carrots ... I will be covering them with fleece against the dreaded fly ... any recommendations as to varieties.

thanks yummyveggies

[Allan]

Autumn king or something similar to mid-July. You shouldn't have any serious problem with carrot fly during this period so you shouldn't need the fleece. You could use an earlier maturing carrot. The next time to sow would be about September to stand the winter and give an early crop next year, I sow in a tunnel, don't know how workable this would be in your district outside.
As with all sowings, if you can possibly sow thinly and with precision so that no thinning is required it is advantageous. Most carrots will tolerate a degree of crowding and still give a worthwhile crop.
Allan

[yummyveggies]

Thank-you Allan ,
I am currently enjoying the spring sown flyaway which have been doing v well without fleece so far .... ( or am I tempting fate !)

thanks again , yummyveggies

[Allan]

We had very good results from an F1 carrot Primo ex Moles seeds, sown 22 Feb, 4 x 6ft. rows, yield per row 3.5 kg per row of top quality plus a lot of smaller ones which are delicious in salad etc. I precision sowed, no thinning. Enough seed left over for at least 3 more similar batches.
Allan

[Johnboy]

Hi Yummyveggies'
You can sow Autumn King Carrots up until mid-August and still get a descent crop which will harvest in January. You will have a good crop of thinnings as you go which make superb eating.
If you have the fleece then I would use it. It is better to be safe than sorry. I appreciate that there are strict main stream periods for Carrot rooy Fly but they can and do breed most of the growing season. One presumes that you bought the fleece to use and stuck in the shed it no good to man or beast. Under the fleece I would use slug pellets where they are harmless to everything other than the intented target. Keeled slugs can and will take a row of freshly emerging seedlings before you even see them. If you can sow them 1" apart and thin out to leave 3" between Carrots for your final pulling you will have Carrots for use until the first earlies are ready next year. I find that those pulled in January last me until June but of course this depends how many mouths you feed.
I have done an experiment with Early Nantes 2 and Autumn King 2 in 4ftx4ft raised and covered with anti White Fly netting that precludes Carrot Root Fly and all the other nasties that can have a crack at them. So far I am just finishing of the final thinning of the Early Nantes and they have been superb and I shall now start on the Autumn King shortly. Growing 1" apart allows them to get quite a size before thinning is at all necessary. I am very pleased with the experiment. I hope to be down sizing shortly and the experiment was to find out what quality the Carrots would be grow with final spacing of 3" in any direction. It appears to be working out very well and I end up with 196 mature Carrots of both varieties. Which is approx 2 Carrots per day for every day they are in store. I only have myself to feed now so the more mouths maybe the quantities would need to be adjusted.
I hope you find this helpful.

[yummyveggies]

thank-you Johnboy , very useful ... and the keeled slugs did have a serious go at my spring sown carrots ... quite a patchy couple of rows ... even where I resowed ...

I will use that fleece and slug pellets ( apologies for those who don't approve - but as you say under the fleece that shouldn't be a problem).

I must do some calculations on volumes of produce as last year my OH's refrain coming up to supper time was 'oh not pumpkin again' ....

thanks to you both for the help.
yummyveggies

[David]

Hi Johnboy

You imply storing carrots for quite a while out of the ground. Mine go limp in the fridge in a day so you are doing something differently I'm sure.

Would you share your storage method?

Thanks very much.

David

[sandersj89]

David,

Dont know how Johnboy does it but I lift them in the late autumn and store in both wooden wine doxes and plastic tubs covered in nearly dry compost. Layer of compost, layer of carrots with none touching each other, another layer of compost and so on.

These are then placed in a frost free shed for the winter and are happy for a good few months.

You can also store them in a clamp but I have never tried it myself as I believe it is more prone to visits from pest:

Some instructions here:

http://www.allotment.org.uk/allotment_f ... tables.php

HTH

Jerry

[Johnboy]

Hi Jerry,
My Carrots are stored exactly that way except mine are stored in very old Gordon's Gin Boxes which were made prior to WW2 and are beautifully dovetailed boxes. I have a rather large storage facility made of angle iron with and expanded metal lath. It is clad in 4" Expanded Polystyrene Insulation with ventilation holes cut top and bottom and the top covered with sheets of galvanised sheeting.
It is in the northern corner of one of my barns which have 24" stone walls. So they are kept very cool and are vermin proof. It is amazing the deposits that appear on the gavanized sheeting!
Not only can Vermin eat your stored crops they have a habit of urinated on things which tends to bugger them up. Found that out by bitter experience!
Yummyveggies,
My sowings of Carrot are made easy by using Pelleted Seed which I think is only available from Commercial Seed Merchants so I rather cheat. See PM.

[Geoff]

I like the phrase "bitter experience" - nasty taste in the mouth?
I tried fleecing carrots once and had problems which I decided were caused by lack of air flow.
Last year I made 6 frames 5'x2'plus legs on the 2' from slate battens and covered them with insect mesh so I can surround a bed 10'x5'. I also made a sort of roll top lid of mesh. This lets me construct a carrot coffin and has been very successful as I can use slug pellets safely and easily remove the lid for weeding and thinning and no tops have gone mouldy like they did with fleece. It looks like it will last many years.

[David]

Excellent advice, thanks I'll go get some boxes.

D

[Johnboy]

Hi Geoff,
I use fleece on some things but I am lucky that I have Anti White Fly netting which prevents everything getting near my crop. As I say the raised beds were 4ftx4ft x1ft high and I have black water service pipe covering and battoned at two opposing sides and then the netting running between the other two sides are clipped to the base and can be easily lifted for access for thinning etc.

[Allan]

I am still waiting for an opportunity to sow my maincrop. I got the cultivator across the 100 ft row with great difficalty and then spent half an hour clearing out the gooey mud before I could put it away. The strip is now covered with glass Growers Barn cloches to let it dry out.
As to leaving the carrots in after October, the ends rot off if I do that so it's a race to get a decent crop out. In different circumstances one has to be glad of whatever one can get. I never have put fleece over, there are very occasional traces of fly damage, not enough to bother us.
Storage is in the cellar, dustbins full of dryish old compost. Dry sand would do just as well.
There are nearly as many different ways to do things as there are gardeners.
Allan

[Allan]

Am I misuinderstanding? I Thought the idea of pellet seeds and precision sowing was to make thinning unnecessary, saves time and avoids attracting fly by handling the foliage..
Allan

[oldherbaceous]

Dear Allan, i think when Johnboy refers to thinning, i don't think he thins because they have been sown to thickly, but to get a maximum yeild out of a certain area. By pulling every other carrot at a usable size you get the best of both worlds, nice young small carrots followed by some real decent ones. So would it really be classed as thinning.
There again i could be wrong, it has been known before.

Kind regards Old Herbaceous.

When i'm not fishing i'm mending my nets.