[sunshineband]

Mine have started off ok, albeit a few gaps that needed filling in, carrots the same, might dig out all the soil from the root bed and replace it with new at the season end, rotation is awkward due to heavy soil in some other parts of the plot.

We rotate round a four year cycle, and the beds into which carrots and parsnips are going in the following year have as many stones removed as possible in the Autumn previous, and then lots of home made compost or cheap mpc dug in to give a more open texture. Our "natural" soil is heavy clay with large stones and an underlying gravel pan. Stones work their way upwards into the shallowish top soil continuously, but things are improving and we can grow decent carrots and ...usually... passable parsnips.

Maybe something to consider, Thrutchington

[victoria park]

Our site suffers from shallow soil in places on top of shellet. Consequently there is a lot of stone floating about everywhere. I have for some years been using mostly the no dig/ little dig method on most of my beds, and actually this helps the carrot and parsnip crops, as deeper annual digging just brings up a whole new load of slate to the surface. But it takes years to get beds built up enough. I have a few beds now suitable for direct sowing, but rotation demands they weren't available this year.

[AnneB]

I have 3 raised beds that are "double height" with scaffolding planks on top of each other.  I rotate around these for my carrots and parsnips and always avoid manuring next year's bed the previous autumn.  This seems to help.

Our soil is clay but at the outset we sieved all of it in order to remove all the horse tail, old glass, bricks and other rubbish.  It seemed never ending to begin with but now the soil is good.