Growing carrots - successes and Failures

Growing Carrots – the failures and more importantly, the successes

Well, I’ve been trying to grow carrots for many years, always on totally unsuitable soil and it really isn’t my favourite vegetable! However, I do love a challenge and I can learn to love the vegetable which is a rarity – yes I know I can buy them in the supermarket for a couple of pounds a kilo but, that is not the same as growing them successfully and enjoying the produce from my allotment.

My ground is heavy clay though, the advantage is that there are few stones in this clay. One year, when we had appropriate weather in every month throughout the growing season [yes! it really did happen one year!], I spent hours digging a suitable trench using a small Chillington hoe [like a mattock !] breaking up the ground across my plot and wide enough to sow two rows of carrots – if I remember rightly it was a fairly reliable variety – Autumn King.

My crop was a brilliant success and I enjoyed this flavoursome variety for several weeks with no carrot root fly attacks until I had finished the crop – I was impressed with my success.

The following year – the weather was okay, allowing me to till the ground thoroughly at the right time and I tried again with the same variety as well as a couple of varieties suggested by my daughter who likes to explore new and different varieties [I tried white carrots – Blanc a Colet Vert and purple carrots – Purple Haze]. The maincrop variety – Autumn King was ripped apart by carrot root fly and the crop was totally useless although I had prepared the ground thoroughly to encourage good germination, establishment and growth. The purple carrots had not been attacked so badly and the white carrots – not at all.

The white carrots were able to stay in the ground over several months, into winter and grew to about 25 – 30 cm [10 -12 inches] in length with little carrot fly damage. I found that as the winter progressed the roots became tougher and woodier and in frosty weather were difficult to dig up with some slug damage in the early spring.

The story goes that carrot root fly don’t fly above 30cm [12 inches]. Well, I’m here to tell you that carrot root fly have not read the manual!

A friend – who did love his carrots – built me a ‘carrot box’ on legs, which sits a metre [39 inches] above ground [of course, if we believe what the experts tell us, this will really beat them. The box is 1 metre wide and 1½ metres long. I filled it with new, good quality compost and sowed a couple of varieties of carrots – 5 rows in total. The germination was excellent, I thinned carefully and harvested when the carrots were at their best – but! they were full of carrot root fly larvae! Since then [I use the ‘carrot box’ as a seedbed for brassicas or lettuces].

Over successive years, I have prepared my seedbeds carefully, covered with environmesh, covered with netting [last year the pigeons ate the tops off my emerging crops!], sown fly resistant varieties, protected from slugs but, all

with variable success.

I continue, undaunted! And of course, the carrots become more useful and more delicious as a consequence.

My friend and colleague, Pete, told me he grows his carrots successfully in his poly tunnel [although his poly-tunnel is very much larger than mine – therein lies a problem – crops in greenhouses and poly-tunnels must be watered and on most allotments, that means carrying the water – the larger the greenhouse/poly-tunnel the more watering must be done on a very regular basis].

This year, I have grown a couple of rows of carrots in my poly tunnel – Early Nantes. They have been brilliant, providing me with a crop as I was planting my tomato crops into the same ground as the carrots were harvested and the tomatoes were planted. This worked well [well, this year anyway!] and I was able to harvest thinnings; early carrots; and really chunky but, tender roots while the tomato plants were developing. This was a good system except for the fact that I leave the door of my poly-tunnel open as soon as the risk of frost has passed and carrot root fly has attacked the roots closest to the doorway.

I assume they will now be aware of my poly-tunnel and will attack all crops there.

I have sown white carrots on my plot – Crème de Lite – which have been attacked aggesssively by pests leaving 2mm holes in the roots – is this really a super carrot root fly or something else?

This year, I sowed a couple of large tubs of mixed carrots – Purple Haze and Ideal Red [which is amazingly orange coloured] in my back garden. They have been brilliant – tender, delicious and flavoursome. I could almost be persuaded to think of carrots as my new best vegetable! Perhaps carrot root fly have not yet discovered this part of Bristol!

However, while the ground conditions might not defeat me, it is possible that carrot root fly will succeed. Any and all advice would be really appreciated.