Carrots and lawn dressing

Hello,

I'm new here so go easy on me if this is a crazy idea. I've got some raised beds, about 450mm deep. As carrots are apparently bit tricky I've sectioned of an areas for them and I'm going to sieve to soil. Currently, its vegetable soil from a place called brs garden group, so a good all rounder for veg.

There seams to be a bit of debate about the importance of sand but in the interest of drainage I was going to mix in a bit of sand. Not much like.

But... I don't have any sand laying around. I do have a load of lawn and turf dressing that i don't really need. It feels like its mainly sand anyway and would be ideal. Would this be a good idea?

I was also going to put 50mm of gravel down in the bottom to help drainage, just to be sure.

Any input welcome

 

On the bag it says "Lawn and turf dressing consists of fine sieved loam, peat and sand. It also contains additional fertiliser to provide your lawn with all the nutrients that it needs to thrive."

No mention of weed killer which would obviously be an issue but if the fertiliser an issue? I saw the loam, peat, sand and fertiliser all as a good thing? (the ethics of peat aside)

 

The ground the raised beds are sitting on is quite clayey and the garden grains terribly in general, hence the gravel i've dug down a bit past the bottom of the bed, put in maybe 30 - 50mm of 20mm gravel, covered in a membrane and have started sieving some of the soil on... This could take a while.

 

I'd already put a couple of trowels in so fingers crossed its not an issue. The fertiliser is presumably potassium, phosphorus and nitrogen, not exactly organic but unlike to cause any issues? I'm gonna hang fire on putting any more in and might leave what there is at the bottom could even encourage them to grow further down?...

 

You could look here for some information on the best soil for carrots from this champion, though you might have to raise your raised bed by about 4 ft to match the length of his !
Growing Long Carrots - Medwyns of Anglesey

 

I've got about 400mm or 15" of depth left so maybe 14" of soil if fill nearly to the brim. From what I've read this should more than enough for the kitchen. I'm not trying to win any competitions, just want the kids to recognise them as carrots.

 

My only input would be is lawn feed likely to have too much nitrogen in it for growing veg?

 

The fertiliser does make it a bit of an unknown quantity so I've bought some sand. I'm sure two trowel fulls mixed into 200L of soil won't make much difference.

 

I bought some John Innes no3 to top it up and that seems quite sandy itself so I'm not gonna add much.

 

The issue of clay soils is often over emphasised.In my experience, of more than 50 years, unless the ground is so wet that carrots rot, they will be ok in clay soils. If the soils are shallow, ie underlaid by rock, select a 'stumpy ' carrot variety. The carrots depicted here were grown on London clay, with a no- dig compost dressing of well rotted manure, applied in the preceeding autumn. Variety was Giant Red from realseeds. Not exhibition quality but well tasty!

 

I always found that with my clay soil the biggest problem was getting a fine enough tilth to sow carrots in.
Once germinated it was fine, but often heavy rain would cause a hard surface that a puny carrot seedling couldn't penetrate.

I used to add some sand to the drill and covering to counteract the problem.

 

Yes I make a drill, water it heavily, sow the seeds then use a bagged compost to fill the drill instead of the soil I moved out of it. Then walk on it to press it down and don't water. Makes weeding and thinning much easier. I do the same with parsnips.

I grew a stump rooted one last year called oxhella, it was also pretty good as it's so chunky there was more left of it after the carrot root fly maggots had their fill. I guess I didn't cover them well enough to prevent them

 

I thought the soil should be light and loose? Surely walking on it would over pack it down?

 

I've always had firm beds that I can walk on, doesn't seem to make a difference for parsnips and carrots imo but then i don't grow them for the show bench