Kitchen Garden Forum

Hi All ,
I am doing a bit of forward planning for next year ,this year I planted couple of rows of carrots and hardly any came up so I replanted and got a few to germinate ,I was wondering what was the best way to acheive a good crop,
The ones that did come up were great in taste but did have a little damage from carrot fly .Peple looked at me all strange when I said ive eaten a carrot that tastes like a carrot should !!.
Does any one have any tips please ?
Bitzy

Hello Bitzy66
If you search forum you will find an excellent method suggested by Johnboy for sowing carrots.
I use this method and it works every time.

I also sow in a barrel.



This is filled with previously used peat-based potting compost or similar and has a few drainage holes at the bottom. The seed is sown on the surface and then covered with sieved compost to not more than 1 cm depth. The great advantage of all this is that because of the height of the barrel the carrots are safe from the dreaded root fly. Feeding is best done using soluble feeds like Chempak or Miracle Grow. One barrel can be very productive because the carrots are grown closely and the thinnings give super young carrots while the rest grow on to maturity.
You don't have to have a barrel like this - a plastic dustbin would work just as well.

Hope this helps

John

PS All the carrots come out perfectly straight!!!
PPS Don't stand the bin on the soil as ants will quickly move in and make a huge nest. Stand on a solid base like an old paving slab.

Sometimes it isn't that the carrots haven't germinated but the fact that the slugs have mown the newly emerging seedlings before you spot them.

We grow carrots on heavy clay soil by digging a shallow trench and filed with compost and sowing in that. Initially it need to be kept well watered.

I've described our method on my website here
http://glallotments.co.uk/CarrotFly.aspx

No doubt many will disaggree with our methods but it has worked for us for several years now in spite of being told that we would never manage to grow carrots on our plot!

This year is the first year I have successfully grown carrots. I riddled the soil first then when I put in the seeds I also put in a few slug pellets. I had an excellent result. I use raised bed system and the carrot bed is about 1 metre square, covered with fleece which stayed on all the time.

while we are on the subject which is the best way of storing carrots? I have frozen 5kg but really like them fresh.

This business about Carrot Root Fly not being able to fly well is simply a load of old rubbish!
Look at it logically; if you were a CRF and you were looking for somewhere to lay your eggs you wouldn't do it from 10ft high would you and the answer is neither do they! They fly low to detect a suitable place to lay their eggs and the rest of the time they fly just like any other fly.
With Carrot production Glallotments is correct that they need protection from Black Keeled Slugs. Some time before the advent of the slug pellet I noticed one evening I notice that two 30ft rows of Carrots had germinated well. The following morning I was just in time to see the last of them disappearing inside a hoard of these little wretches.
So Carrots need protection from CRF and Keeled Slugs.
I use Netting and Slug Pellets and if you are sensible so will you!
JB.

Thanks guys for all the tips ,I am looking forward to getting started next season ,not to wish the time away but growing has got under my skin ,It seems to be that old saying "learn by your mistakes " is true because ive learnt loads this year

Bitzy

Johnboy wrote:This business about Carrot Root Fly not being able to fly well is simply a load of old rubbish!
JB.

I'm glad that you said thisas I have always been sceptical about this theory - I could never understand how they managed to get into walled gardens if they couldn't fly over the walls!! I would imaging in breezy weather the wind would even blow them above ground level.

As for storing - we leave our carrots in the soil over winter still under the enviromesh - as we don't really have carrotfly due to the protection we give this doesn't provide any overwintering sites for the flies. We pop some straw over the carrots as added protection and then just dig up as we do parsnips.

Thanks for that, did think about storing them in boxes of sand in the cellar, but wasnt sure what kind of sand.

I've had better carrots than ever this year. Last year I had put a lot of leafmopuld down in the autumn and that was OK, but this time I used enviromesh from the off and the plants have thrived.

If you are able to warm up the soil then an early sowing is possible, but I have found this more difficult to do that you might expect. My first sowings really do struggle, but my second, third and fourth have grown well.

They need watering in dry weather when tiny, but once established I would leave them to search for water as the surface dries out; that way they grow longer.

My early sowing at home didn't come to anything at all, but the later sowing is doing OK.
On the allotment I have some growing under fleece, and another later lot under a debris net tunnel. Both lots are really doing well

Our early carrots were ok, but the ones I am harvesting now and had hoped to keep in the soil very much longer, are riddled with carrot root fly, in spite of having been covered with fleece. The little b****** obviously got in when I had to lift it to weed and also to water throughly earlier in the season..

For next year I am planning to put up a 3 foot high frame and then cover the whole thing with insect netting (already bought from LBS). This should make it easier to water and just to push the top aside to get to the weeds.

Hi Monika,
I really depends on growing carrots in different places each year way apart from the previous years site. If you cover with fleece and the fleece covers part of last years carrot bed then it is possible that you are trapping the emerging young flies from the previous years crop. (If you had any)
I must say that this is only a thought but it is a possibility.
JB.