Raised beds for carrots
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JohnN
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I've read that growing carrots in raised beds (over 18" above the ground) stops carrot root fly laying their eggs as they're low fliers. Before I start constructing such, can anybody confirm that it really works?. Thinks: wouldn't the flies just treat the surface of the bed as the "ground"?
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Nature's Babe
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Hi John, a barrier that high around the carrots is what is needed, they do fly low, also there are some resistent varieties of carrot .and companion plants that deter the fly are sage, and onions.
Sit down before a fact as a little child, be prepared to give up every preconcieved notion, follow humbly wherever and to whatever abyss nature leads, or you shall learn nothing.
By Thomas Huxley
http://www.wildrye.info/reserve/
By Thomas Huxley
http://www.wildrye.info/reserve/
Hello John
I grow carrots in barrels like Elaine and over the years have never had any fly problems.
The only problem is that you need to keep an eye on the watering and feed regularly with a high K soluble feed or a comfrey liquid if you use that. This barrel is about 24 in across and the carrots are grown quite densely at about 2 in apart. It is filled with a mixture of peat-based potting compost from the previous years flower tubs with fresh compost - about 50:50. I'm not sure that a compost based on soil would work as it might slump badly.
If you do try this method then support the barrel off the ground to prevent ants moving in at the bottom.
This year some of the carrots grew well enough to earn me a red card in our local show!
John
I grow carrots in barrels like Elaine and over the years have never had any fly problems.
The only problem is that you need to keep an eye on the watering and feed regularly with a high K soluble feed or a comfrey liquid if you use that. This barrel is about 24 in across and the carrots are grown quite densely at about 2 in apart. It is filled with a mixture of peat-based potting compost from the previous years flower tubs with fresh compost - about 50:50. I'm not sure that a compost based on soil would work as it might slump badly.
If you do try this method then support the barrel off the ground to prevent ants moving in at the bottom.
This year some of the carrots grew well enough to earn me a red card in our local show!
John
The Gods do not subtract from the allotted span of men’s lives, the hours spent fishing Assyrian tablet
What we observe is not nature itself, but nature exposed to our method of questioning Werner Heisenberg
I am a man and the world is my urinal
What we observe is not nature itself, but nature exposed to our method of questioning Werner Heisenberg
I am a man and the world is my urinal
