Fly resistant carrots - what do they taste like?

[Slugger]

 ???

Based on the assumption that it is the very same taste that makes carrots so nice to eat and grow that also attracts the carrot fly, would I be right in assuming that the fly resistant varieties lack something in flavour?

Has anyone done a taste test?

[Slugger]

[sandersj89]

I have grown Fly Away this year with pretty good results. The carrots are a decent size and the taste is fine, maybe not as good as Autumn King.

I had one row of fly away under fleece and a late sown row that ha never been fleeced and they do not show many signs of fly damage. Late sowing might be a factor here as there are 2 or 3 hatches of flies each year.

From:

http://www.hdra.org.uk/organicgardening/gh_cfly.htm

There are two or three generations of carrot fly each season. The first adult females hatch in mid April to early May, and these cruise round looking for - and smelling out - defenceless young carrots.

Eggs are laid in cracks in the soil - within a week the larvae will have hatched. They will feed on your carrots until July/August, when the second generation will emerge. Not all of these larvae will hatch - some will overwinter cosily inside their carrots.

HTH

Jerry

[Slugger]

Blimey that was quick! Thanks Jerry!!!

[sandersj89]

Oh, forgot to add. I am trying Resista Fly this year as I have read in Kitchen Garden that this has a better flavour and also performs well against the fly.

They also said do not bother growing some of the yellow/red/purple carrots as the flavour was very poor.

Jerry

[tim]

Grown both - doubt that the average chap(ess) could tell the difference in a blind tasting. Your own carrots are SO flavoursome, anyway. I like the shape of R/fly. = Tim

[Mrs Ava]

awww, and I have rainbow carrots to try out next year.

[Hugh_Jones]

Those who garden in areas which are bad for carrot fly, or indeed in most areas when there is a particularly dry summer, would be most unwise to rely on carrot fly egg laying being confined to 2 or 3 occasions at fixed times per season.  As long ago as 1960 Lawrence Hills pointed out that in such areas, or such seasons, protection against fly (which was then restricted to such measures as flaked naphthaline, paraffin or TVO soaked sand or grass and hay mulches) needed to be repeated without fail at fortnightly intervals throughout the whole summer.

I confirmed this by experiments over two summers in 2001 and 2002 using 24 separate carrot beds, each with its own separate fleece protection, and each one exposed, in rotation, for just one period of two weeks during the season. There was no possibility of cross-contamination between the beds.  Every single bed was attacked by fly, and I considered this as ample proof that there is no single period of a fortnight between mid April/mid September when fly will not attack in a bad fly area.

[tim]

Really, Emma! - & black tomatoes etc? I know that yellow & green & white toms are ace, but a carrot is a carrot? Whch is carrot coloured? And the carotene comes from the orange?? Like who's for blue roses? = Tim

[Mrs Ava]

Ah but Tim, I am trying to encourage the kids to try things, and for some peculiar reason, they do like things to be oddly coloured or shaped!

[Wicker]

Believe the only way to protect agaisnt carrot fly is to keep covered from sowing to harvesting - anyway I'm sticking to that!

Tim, sure I read somewhere that originally most carrots were purple?

[sandersj89]

Believe the only way to protect agaisnt carrot fly is to keep covered from sowing to harvesting - anyway I'm sticking to that!

Tim, sure I read somewhere that originally most carrots were purple?

Yep, more here:

http://website.lineone.net/~stolarczyk/history.html

Jerry

[tim]

Good ploy - Emma - & they do enjoy experimenting, don't they.

But I am not into purple carrots!! = Tim

[campanula]

oooh, i am. will try just about anything but, i cannot somehow imagine growing/eating blue potatoes - not just ones with blue skin but are sort of bruised looking all through. Sadly, I am almost as influenced by how something looks as how good it tastes - terrible confession, i know.... how shallow am I?
suzy