How do you grow your carrots IE: in raised beds/containers or ground and what mix of compost or soil do you use to get the best results.
I made a raised bed 6ft long by 4ft wide by 18inch high and filled it with a mix of Humax Gold and peat but last year even though i had a good germination rate they had a lot of foliage but small carrots.
Considering i did not feed them with a high nitrogen rate feed why did i get the above results? what do you feed yours with?
This link might help; http://www.carrotmuseum.co.uk/cultivation.html (http://www.carrotmuseum.co.uk/cultivation.html)
we part fill our carrot and parsnip beds with rotted leaves then fill with soil/compost mix, it seems to work for us, just need to water between the rows if it's very dry :)
I grow mine in either deep pots or modules then plant out into soil improved with loamy compost (old tomato compost in my case) i have stony/chalky soil so direct sowing tends not to work so well although this year i have tried direct sowing into a compost mulch which so far seems to be doing well.
For the past few years I have grown carrots in an old freezer box, I use gereral purpose compost, sow the seeds rather thick because as they grow you can water and carefully pull and use small ones. If you have them raised up you do not get carrot fly as they only ahve a limited height at which they fly. You can see them on my little website. together with potatoes and parsnips.
Laurieuk what size boxes are you using please. I have some polystyrene fish boxes & I thought they might grow a few carrots.
I was given yet another bath for my allotment, and this time I didn't use it for water. I filled the bottom half with part rotted compost from my everlasting heap, then multipurpose compost mixed with grow bags x 2 compost. Then I sowed my carrots under fleece at first, and took off the fleece about 3 weeks ago. They grew well last year in this way and again I seem to be well on my way to another good crop this year. I succession sow for a bit of continuity into late summer.
I have tried hard to grow carrots in the ground with zilch success, but this way is almost failsafe. So a nice deepish container, a couple of feet off the ground, and stoneless growing medium, plus a bit of tlc in the early stages i.e. fleece, does it for me.
Regards and happy carrot growing
Caro