Kitchen Garden Forum

I just served up my first( and last!) red samurai carrot. It had a hard woody core that no amount of cooking would penetrate, let alone my teeth, and absolutely no flavour! Which reminded me that I tried purple carrots too, but the packet only contained about 10 seeds, none of which germinated. I had to laugh when I thought about all my hopes for a crop of tasty, attractive carrots, only to end up with a row of inedible woody things even the rabbits would not eat.
What have you invested your hopes in this year, only to end up laughing at the results?

Dear Dotor Deb, mine has to be my early Carrots too, they got attacked by aphids at an early stage and never really recovered.

I'm not trying to say they were as bad as yours though.

But the last four rows of Carrots i sowed, look a real picture now.

I wouldn't say I ended up laughing but for the fourth year on the trot Badgers have taken all my sweetcorn

This in spite of building a substantial fruit cage with the wire buried and pegged...it/they still dug their way in....they must have been darned good cobs thats all I can say...shame I didn't get to taste them

My sweetcorn is a very bad joke The first lot looked great when I planted them out, but they just didn't grow. They are now, ooh at least 18" high, with cobs growing at ground level and these haven't germinated. I was pulling some up yesterday, those I could find under the pumpkin leaves

The second lot of sweetcorn also looks pretty weedy, although 100% better than the first lot.

Hi Chantal,
What is 100% of nothing?
JB.

Chantal wrote:My sweetcorn is a very bad joke. The first lot looked great when I planted them out, but they just didn't grow.
The second lot of sweetcorn also looks pretty weedy,

Out of interest, when did you sow your seed, and if started inside, when did you plant them out?

On our allotments, many people had their's in the ground by May. I always leave mine a little later. Having said this, I don't think any of the early birds lost any and their ones had fine cobs on them by July. Mine are still at the mini stage, but usually come good by September.

I symathise with you about the samurai carrots in fact somewhere on this forum i started a thread on them last year, they tasted very bitter in my opinion.

I have never had sucess with carrots, I really need to invest ££ in some enviromesh and buy fresh seed.

I reluctantly dug out my asparagus bed this year I have had a couple of good years, it was started from seed 6 years ago, but yields was very low this year and loads of the spears contorted and too spindly, again need to invest money on decent crowns and start again in a more accesible place, (last bed was in easily forgotten corner and hence over invaded with weeds)

Hello Mandylew
I remember your earlier thread on Samurai carrots - as I was the only that added to it! I never tried them again as the first lot I grew developed well but ran to seed before making any proper roots.

I would certainly recommend growing carrots in barrels. I have one of those blue barrels, about 30 ins high and 24 in across filled with old potting compost from last year's growbags, geranium pots etc. plus a bit of fresh stuff and pepped up with a sprinkle of lime and slow release fertilizer. It produces superb carrots. I was sorting through them last week for an entry in our village show - each one was top quality so I only had to match them for size.

John

Hello Mandylew. Your post reminded me of another sniggering incident on the plot this year. I did invest in enviromesh, to keep the rabbits out. No problem with the sweet corn-probably my only really good crop this year- but arrived at the plot one day to find a fat bunny underneath the mesh and eating my brassicas! So much for my wise investment.....

Sorry to hear about your problems this year, including the fat bunny.

I noticed that your purple carrots didn't germinate. Has any one else had this problem. I bought a packet of "Purple Haze" and not one germinated. Have we been sold dud seed?

i planted a potato this spring. it came from my veg drawer, and i didn't bother to check if it had eyes, and i just used some potting soil i had from last year's attempt at container gardening (cherry tomatoes did alright. landlady's son killed my watermelons. some fungus got the cucumbers, the nasturtiums didn't get enough sun/water/dirt, but the herbs flourished. yea herbs!)

i waited and waited. finally something that didn't look like a weed sprouted up. i was so excited! i moved it to a sunnier spot, thinking maybe that was why it was so slow to sprout.

i waited. i watered. i waited.

it wasn't acting the way i thought a potato plant acted. it seemed to have a tendency to want to turn into a leafy vine.

i looked potatoes up online. it was definitely not a potato plant.

...to make a long story short, i planted a potato and got a watermelon. (sadly, the pigeons ate the one tennis ball sized fruit before i got to it. darn pigeons.)

my herbs continue to thrive. yea, herbs!

Dear Alia, thats the thing with Herbs, he just doesn't go away.

Herbs

You mean there's more than one

Dear Alan, lukily for you lot there is just the one.

But there is a sweet young girl not far from me, that calls me Herbs.

I have one single carrot developing from a row I sowed. This is the second year I've had this happen so don't think I'll try them again.
My surprise has been my Chioggia beetroot (from a freebie packet). When cooked it has been sweet but a horrible insipid blurred pinkish shade, but when sliced extremely thinly, the pink and white rings have been really attractive and we've been enjoying it raw in salads and served as a garnish on various hors d'oeuvres "What on earth is this?" people have asked. And often they can't even guess so in that respect it has been rather fun to grow.