Kitchen Garden Forum

Hi - Can anyone offer any advice, to why my parnips - hollow crown -(which were planted in alternate rows with carrots) are massive, & the carrots - autumn king - pathetically small; most barely an inch long, the biggest, few of them, 3 inches.

They were planted at the same time, & treated exactly the same. The parnip have more spacing as they didn't all germinate in their rows. However, the diameter of the top of some of the carrots is at least an inch - but none have any length.

I've never grown autumn king before - is length normally a problem? I tried them for their keeping ability, but they'll mostly be on the compost at theis rate!

Thanks.

Dear Skip, very strange as Autumn King are normaly very vigorous, i always grow them for this reason and for there excelent storing abilities.
Although this is not helping you with your problem.
A couple of points i have thought of, did you thin them out adequately, they need about a three inch spacing after their final thinning.
The other thing i was wondering was if the rows were a little to close, and the parsnips got growing before the carrots and took most of the moisture from the ground.
At least you got some parsnips, what most people struggle with.

I think it must have been the thinning from what you say, i dont think the carrots had 3" each. So thats something to look more carefully at in future - also the moisture might have been more of a problem if they were competeing with carrots so close.
Thanks for your help OH....