Nairobi-Carrots-growing
It is difficult, if not impossible, to grow carrots on heavy soil in the vegetable garden. It is hard to produce a seed bed, with very small soil crumbs, suitable to enable the carrot seed to germinate. When it rains the soil goes like concrete, and then when it dries out, it cracks.
On our heavy soil we have incorporated coarse sand to make it more friable. The sand particles help to keep the clay particles apart. You need a lot of coarse sand to have any effect. You need so much that it is not really practical.
Adding a lot of organic matter does not solve the problem, because you need to add so much to have any effect.
Carrots have always been grown on sandy soils, or sandy-loams. But gardeners with heavy soil could try growing carrots in a container – which can be filled with the perfect growing medium!
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Sweetheart carrots have yielded well in the vegetable garden & not succumbed to carrot fly after all this time.
sweetheart-carrots
The carrots in the photo had been kept in the ground and pulled on New Year’s Day.
Sweetheart carrots are:
- very sweet
- very early
- brightly coloured
- virtually coreless when young
- superbly flavoured
- heavy yielding
- long and slender
SweetheartCarrots
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carrot-fly-resistant
Carrot Fly Free varieties of carrot are available to grow in the Vegetable Garden. Three examples of carrot fly varieties are:
* Resistafly – mid to late season use
* Flyaway – early
* Early Nantes – suitable for early sowing under glass
Growing carrot fly resistant varieties is a great example of biological control – a method used in organic vegetable production.
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Reasons why carrots do split:
* A lot of water after a dry period
* irregular watering
* heavy rain after drought
* very rapid growth
cracked-carrot
split carrot
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Harvest carrots as soon as they are large enough to use. Pull a few up
to see how big they are. If the carrots are left in the ground to
mature, the leaves will start to die off, but mature carrots will not
taste as good as younger ones.
bunch-of-carrots
To harvest carrots:
* use a fork to loosen the soil at the side of the carrot – making
sure it does not touch the carrot
* hold on to the carrot foliage and pull
Do not wash carrots before putting them into store
It is possible to harvest fresh carrots nearly all year round by regularly sowing suitable varieties.
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Carrot fly (latin name – Psila rosae) is a disaster.
The carrot flies lay eggs in cracks of the soil, near carrots & parsnips. The eggs hatch out into maggots which enter the roots & feed on them. They ruin the crop.
* Carrot flies are not strong fliers, so a windswept site is an
advantage.
* Grow a resistant strain.
* Sow seeds thinly, to avoid having to thin the carrots out, as the
fly is attracted by the smell
* weed & pull carrots on a dry, still evening so the scent of the
carrot does not reach the fly
* use a net to keep the fly off the carrot
carrotnet
* use a vertical barrier, at least 70cm high, of fine mesh or
polythene around the crop
