Topic: Carrott fly

[pumkinlover]

Interesting thought! ;D

[lincsyokel2]

I grow carrots in compost , in standard glass fibre baths. I have two, there spectaularly sucessfull. I drape debris netting over, nothing gets through that.

[pumkinlover]

Is the plug hole enough drainage? I've got a bath and am wondering wether to try this- I usually use buckets.
do you put something over the plug hole- like crocks or gravel? to ensure keeps draining?

[lincsyokel2]

Is the plug hole enough drainage? I've got a bath and am wondering wether to try this- I usually use buckets.
do you put something over the plug hole- like crocks or gravel? to ensure keeps draining?

i stand the bath on its own legs, but make sure its level and the plug hole is clears - i remove all the drainage plasticwork. I also put in a layer at the bottom of perlite + compost, to hold the water better, but thats only because  i can get dirt cheap perlite and compost.  Takes about 6 x 80L bags of compost to fill a bath, but as long as you dont get carrot fly, you can keep reviving it with farmyard manure every year. And theres nothing to stop you recycling all the spent compost out of pots.

[RSJK]

Is the plug hole enough drainage? I've got a bath and am wondering wether to try this- I usually use buckets.
do you put something over the plug hole- like crocks or gravel? to ensure keeps draining?

i stand the bath on its own legs, but make sure its level and the plug hole is clears - i remove all the drainage plasticwork. I also put in a layer at the bottom of perlite + compost, to hold the water better, but thats only because  i can get dirt cheap perlite and compost.  Takes about 6 x 80L bags of compost to fill a bath, but as long as you dont get carrot fly, you can keep reviving it with farmyard manure every year. And theres nothing to stop you recycling all the spent compost out of pots.
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I would have thought that reviving the compost with farmyard manure would make the carrots fork.

[lincsyokel2]

I used the J Arthur Bowers Dried Farm Manure, and i mix up half the compost then put it at the bottom.

[pumkinlover]

cheers for that I thinks I will give it a go! :) :)

[green lily]

I get carrot fly because we have a lot of cow parsley around here and it overwinters on that. So i use fly resistant types and cover with net, Last year the freebie BBC carrot seed was under  net but still got some. Obviously I lifted it to weed and thin and that let them in. I usually sow from June onwards to miss the May brood and this year have started ordinary[Lidl ] seed in a builders bucket with onion seed and put it on the bench in the poly. Hopefully I'll be able to put it outside later but as high as I can manage ie about 3ft.. Be interesting to see if they still getinto it. The outdoor ones will be covered but I'd be interested to try the onion barrier method but I think our fly problem might be too high for that to work.But nothing ventured nothing gained.... :-\

[picman]

As some have mentioned , several clumps of chives between rows seems to work well , also take care when thinning , collect them in a poly bag and dispose away from site..

[Larkshall]

A very old method of deterring carrot fly is to soak a rag with paraffin and drag that over the leaves. Although paraffin will kill most plants, it won't affect carrots or groundsel, thistles get their leaves burnt but survive.