[Beano]

Hi veg. gardeners,
I have been spending most of my time on the hen house and chicken chat blogs so I'm fairly new to the veg. blog. Here goes.
I normally have an abundance of carrots but this year was hopeless. Almost all of them had grown about 3/4 of and inch into the ground and stopped. I think that maybe it was some sort of deficiency in the soil. Can anyone explain what happened because I don't want the same thing happening next year.
The second question I have is:- do garlic suffer from frost? I have planted some garlic and they were just poking out around 1/2 an inch and it has frozen very hard the last two nights. Does this mean that I have lost them?

[JayG]

The number 1 problem with carrots is carrot fly if no precautions are taken, but the effects are usually quite obvious - reddening and/or dying of the foliage and little maggots burrowing into the actual roots. If it's not that then it probably is some sort of food or water deficiency unless you are trying to grow them in solid clay which makes life hard for them.

Garlic is very hardy and as long as the cloves were planted a couple of inches deep they should be fine.

[Beano]

Thanks for the reply JayG.
I have planted the garlic pretty deep at leas 2" deep and it's good to know that they will be ok.
It wasn't carrot root fly that affected the carrots
They were in a raised bed and to be honest I think they got too dry at times. Even though we had a lot of rain, the bed is quite deep and the soil is quite sandy and therefore did not hold onto the water. I have now added a lot of compost to improve the soil, hopefully it will retain some moisture from now on.

[penance]

I think a lot of people have failed with carrots this year.
We normally do ok but this year had 4 carrots from 3 rows.

[sunshineband]

The compost should help, beano, and putting it on the soil now means it won't be too 'rich' for the carrots come the spring too  

[Beano]

Thank you all. It was a disappointment because I usually get a prize in the local show for carrots. Had none to show this year and had to watch my usual opponent grab first prize.

I'll be back.

[Headgardener22]

I had trouble with my carrots this year as well. I think it was due to lack of water (we've had a very dry summer in Nottingham), some were short, some split although (for whatever reason) one carrot was over 18 inches long (just one).

As regards garlic, my understanding was that it needs a hard frost to grow properly.

[Trillium]

Garlic, like any plant, will react to frost this time of year, but rarely will it die. It originates from Siberia, so don't worry about it. The roots are still growing and doing their thing even if the tops don't look great. Only serious threat to garlic is rot from sitting in pools of water.

Split carrots result from dry carrots suddenly having too much rain, absorbing it, and the skins splitting. Which is why you should water regularly though not heavily. You'll also find this with tomatoes. Sandy soil isn't too bad for carrots as they need loose soil to put on length, but they do need nourishment from soil so compost, even some rotted manure, is good. Clay soil needs lots of loosening below so the carrots don't have to fight through and become stunted.