[Yorkie]

Can we all take a step back here, folks 

An extract from the site policies:

"There is widespread feeling that this is the friendliest forum around and the Moderating Team feels very strongly about keeping it that way.  Try smiling when you type your reply ... no matter that you may disagree with an earlier post - doing so with a smile always helps.  Deliberately disrupting topics, unfriendliness or bad manners to others has no place here.  If you disagree with a subject challenge the idea, do not attack the poster !"

Please can we all draw a line under this and move forward in the spirit of the forum - or Aunt Sally will get cross, and that's not nice to behold 

[Aunt Sally]

Thanks for pointing out how to behave on these  forums Yorkie.

George and Howard have not been with us long so perhaps don't realise we only like polite behaviour here.

I'd hate to be the carrot fly on this thread - play nice boys

[goose]

This is a REALLY friendly site and peeps tolerate all sorts of strange questions (often mine) ...although when i read howards (initial) reply to georges post i thought it quite rude...(but now realise that this was not his/her intention).

Sometimes in forums things can be misread or taken the wrong way, like when using text messenges on your phone.  I now ask for an explaination for such replies and then decide if i have misinterpreted it.

Now....back to long carrots

[george007]

i'm cool with it:)

the japanese imperial long carrot is noted for an exceptionally fine flavour and extreme
length. they can be dark orange almost red at times.

  it makes sense to me to grow a very long exceptionally fine  tasty carrot.

 

[goose]

  THATS BRILLIANT!!  (brilliant orange...but still brilliant!!!!)

[george007]

I can't believe you bored holes in sand when you had a pipe set-up nearby that should have inspired you to dump the sand around them! They could have been pulled out once the sand had settled leaving you with holes for the soil. Crazy man 
Good luck with the crop. Let us know how you get on.

i think you have me mixed up with with the grower in that link.
it's not me.

but thanks anyway

[Kristen]

I wonder if this wouldn't be a useful way for my kids to get more interested in growing veg?

I was keen as a teenager, but I doubt that is the norm, and my kids are less keen that I was at their age.

My, now 10, year old grew gourds for the last two years. She loved the fruit, loved their ugliness, loved their sprawling habit, loved stacking them in a basket in our hall.

I told her that she needed to "produce" something from her patch this year and that Butternut Squash were just the same as Gourds, only edible.  She's not convinced, as you might expect!

I have talked to her about growing "stuff" and she sees it as mildly boring (don't get me wrong, she is quick to help with washing up and tidying generally), whereas as an adult I see the raising of 400 veg plants in 3" pots as a bit of an achievement.

Suttons do a Sunflower Challenge thingie - two little pots of Sunflower seeds (one for child, one for grandparents / whatever, and a tape measure).  My kids are up for that!

But reading this thread has caused me to think that having a family project attempting to grow a ten foot carrot might just have them keen-as-mustard!

[george007]

my god daughter always wants to help on the plot, she is 11 this year.
and i love her enthusiasm
like you she thinks it is great fun , she is aiming for a carrot as tall as herself
so it's going to be a five footer.
and she has her own row of purple carrots
and congo blue potatoes.

good luck with it if you try it

[Kristen]

"she is aiming for a carrot as tall as herself "

Perfect! I'll have a go.

[cathangirl]

"but i don't disregard other growing methods such as growing in pipes as some kind of blasphemy.
my allotment is so small and it makes sense to me to take advantage of any vertical
growing area .
i'm going to use 3 foot pipes sunk  1 foot into the ground  as a border to my beds"

George,
What a good idea to have a border of pipes - much more useful than a fence, as one can grow stuff in pipes.  I'm off to the builder's re-cycling yard to see what I can find .
Your response was not unreasonable, in my humble opinion, considering the first two sniffy replies.
Good luck. 
cathangirl