Carrots

I've tried growing these for a few years now on my allotment plot, with fairly poor results. They have either been too small or the carrot fly got to them. I dont know of anyone else growing them on our site, as the soil here seems to yield terrible results.

I decided to go at it in a different way this year and tried using 3 foot lengths of drainage tubes to beet the carrot fly and its worked very well. We have been eating them for a few months now.

I filled the tubes with loam and sand then made holes with a scaffold tube, filled with sieved compost and sowed the ones below. I also tried just broad cast sowing without making holes for two other varieties, and all have grown and done well.

In the photo below, the hammer is for a sense of scale, and before anyone asks it is a full size hammer and not some comedy small one..lol



Now I know I can grow them, I can go full scale next year!

Steve...

 

well done. i gave up 2 years ago. carrot fly beat me. can you use compost in your system.also has anyone had success on resistant carrot seed and what do they taste like.cheers wrinkly1

 

Well done. I have been growing Autumn King and Autumn King 2 for a good few years now and haven't had anything bigger than those, usually a little smaller. We too have been pulling them for a couple of month's now and I probably have no more than three or four meals left in the ground.
Once again, well done.

 

Nice ones, Steve R.

Here's my first attempt at growing them for size:


Autumn King 2



I planted 36 in a big box as an experiment and plucked a few to gauge their progress. Some were big, some were small and some were large unpretty monstrosities that didn't form the desired single candle tap root.

Their non uniformity means that the compost mix is too rich and too prone to compaction. But, next year's crop will be better.

 

This is a sample of ours this year grown in soil that we have worked for the last 35 years adding lots of wood ash and compost that has certainly helped with the soil management plus all the rotavating that we have done plus spud planting over the years which has helped the soil tilth.

Mr Kandy sowed ours in March/April once the ground and warmed up but we lost the first rows when we had a long dry spell so germination was inhibited so we went out and bought more fresh seed and this time I watered the rows against what Mr Kandy says(he reckons the roots go down to find water)and we also covered the rows with insect mesh that allows water to get through and we find it protects against carrot root fly and we don't get as many weeds.

Steve your specimens look good but for us we just don't have the time to faff around as we only have part of the weekend to get work done....

 

I tried 2 years running and wood lice get mine, any ideas?

 

Our primary crop is Autumn King. I sow early to mid May in holes I've dibbled with an old garden fork handle and filled with garden compost and sieved soil. I sow 4 or 6 seeds per station and reduce to one seedling. Since I started using enviromesh to cover the crop I've had no problems with carrot fly, but I do put down slug pellets in Autumn. It is quite a bit of work and takes time at first, but saves time once the carrots are established and have been weeded a couple of times as I have no thinning to do and few weeds appear after the first couple of weedings.
The added bonus is that I get nice big carrots - one usually lasts us couple of weeks.
This year I was still harvesting in early May - though they were starting to get a bit hairy but tasted just fine once shaved!

​

 

Wow an that's a carrott

 

Lovely photo of your carrot Dave with your Grand Daughter?showing her pretty face through the foliage

Mark try growing them in containers if you are having problems with Woodlice although myself have never had the problem with Woodlice just with slugs when we get the wet weather and leave them in the ground too long at this time of the year so this year I have dug up the whole lot.Good Luck next year and please don't give up on them

 

I pulled the remainder of my carrots yesterday and if it was judged by weight alone then I'd be a happy man.


One of the aforementioned alien monstrosities:





And, the specimen that I was after: