[Elmarto]

Hi,

I have a quite a lot of sand I have been storing my dads carrots in, one of the boxes is now about empty of carrots but still full if sand. I was thinking of adding the sand to my bed where I'm going to plant my carrots this year. Is this wise or am I just inviting lots of disease and carrot fly?

Many thanks

[richy]

i use sharp sand mixed with compost on my lotty to help with drainage(clay soil) i mix it at about 1 part sand to 3 parts compost for my onions and carrots. Not sure if this is what you was thinking. I dont have any problems with it myself, i wouldnt sow any seed directly in sand though.

Richy

[Yorkie]

What sort of soil do you already have on the allotment?

You don't want to risk altering the balance of its structure too much for one particular crop, in case it leads to poor crops of different types of veggies in future years.

Were your Dad's carrots showing any signs of disease once they went into storage - any holes etc?

[Elmarto]

My soil is loamy I think, it's neither sandy nor clay. My beds are in my garden and were grass this time last year. I dug them over and added lots if manure. I manured them again in November but didn't leave room for carrots. So I was thinking if I added some sand it would improve the growing conditions for carrots.

The stored carrots seem ok, I just have about 100kgs of sand in my garage that I need to get rid of! Maybe I should leave the soil alone and put a sandpit in for the kids!