[Benandbill]

I gather these can be grown outdoors from scratch about now and don't have to be sewn indoors first??  Is this right?  I don't want to enter any competitions or anything and don't care if they have legs and are multi coloured etc, as long as they're tasty!!  Does anyone have any good tips for growing carrots?

[Kleftiwallah]

What type of ground do you have?   Carrots DO NOT like being transplanted. Any disturbance to their roots will cause forking.   Light, stone free soil is best that HAS NOT had manure on it.  This will also cause froked carrots.    You can plant them indoors, but in something like kitchen paper tubes so their tap root is not disturbed.

If your ground is stony this will also cause the carrot to fork.   When the time comes to plant, try and spread the seeds out THINLY.  When the time comes to thin out (removing the weedy ones so the better ones can grow larger without having to battle against other carrots).  Thinning out sends out a scent trail to the dreaded carrot root fly that lays its eggs on your carrots and does damage .   A bit to be gowing on with.     Cheers,  Tony.

[JaK]

I have a packet of Amsterdam 3-Sprint. They are baby carrots I think, the packet says'sow outdoors from Jan to July'. Have been toying with the idea of sowing a very small amount just to see what happens.

[DD.]

I'd wait until April, when the ground is warmer and germination will be better.

[Benandbill]

Hmm thanks all, certainly some stuff to be thinking about there, sounds like carrot growing could be an interesting challenge with my stony soil 

[Mazzie]

If you can warm the soil with mulch or a cloche for a couple of weeks first germination will be better.  Ive grown carrots succesfully in pots this early in my garden.  Also a tip for stoney soil is a bulb planter, take a deep plug of soil and fill the hole with a mix of sifted compost and sand - works a treat and i had very few forked carrots last year despite the awful soil 

[viettaclark]

If you've got your beds planned and ready you can sow early varieties under cloche. To tell you the truth, although I do some in Feb. every year it doesn't give you much earlier carrots than the April ones.. I do it because then it's done and I can forget about them until they need thinning. There might also be less risk of fly with the early sowings.

[savbo]

I'm just about to sow a couple of containers of carrots to leave in the unheated greenhouse, see if I get anything...

[Salmo]

I totally agree with DD re waiting until the soil warms up. In my opinion there is little point in sowing and transplanting as the important taproot is always at risk. Sow some more in June for nice young carrots in the Autumn and for Winter storage.

The big enemy is carrot fly and you should read posts on this subject. There are several ways of fighting them and my experiance is as follows.
1. No action - plants either killed when small or full of tunnels.
2. Grow them in between onions - does not work.
3. 2ft high shelter all round - sort of works but always a few tunnels.
4. Tent of environmesh - gives full protection but fiddly to weed.

Some grow in barrels to raise them above carrot fly airspace. I have not tried this as I have good carrot soil. The watering seems a fag.

Any other ideas or opinions?

[JayG]

No. 

[billathome65]

Can you plant carrots in those long deepish plant pots the big green or brown plastic ones you get from the garden centres etc? If so is it best just to use top soil or will they need a fertiliser?

Cheers Bill

[Kristen]

I grow carrots in pots. I mix old compost (e.g. from potatoes grown in bags) 50:50 with sharp horticultural sand.

No fertilizer needed (but I've never understood why not! I know that a lot of Nitrogen will make them fork, but surely they must need SOME help?!!)

[Kristen]

Here's what mine looked like in May

[aelf]

I'm confused about the rich soil/poor soil thing  :blink: . I've read conflicting advice (no surprise there) on the Net and in books. Some say poor soil, some say rich soil. I watched Hugh F.W. plant some in wooden boxes in very rich looking soil and he had a bumper crop, then other TV gardeners use poor soil and also seem to have a bumper crop.

I've set up my carrot box with 2/3 spent soil and 1.3 well-rotted compost so we will see what happens 

[Kathie]

First year I grew carrots they were decimated by carrot fly last year I planted sage with them and they were fine.