[lazza]

After a few years not even trying to grow carrots because of my complete lack of success in the past, I tried them again this year.... mostly because our girls chose some carrot seeds when we were buying seeds in the spring!

So planted some mini round Parmex carrots in a long, tall pot... and we waited.... and waited.... and eventually, a couple of weeks ago, we picked half a dozen carrots... they were OK, but a bit tough to be honest. Then yesterday, I decided to pick the reamaining carrots, and only one was anywhere near a decent size (most were tiny).... left them in a bowl of water for half an hour, only to find lots of tiny white maggots wriggling out.... carrot fly!   

I had thought planting in a tall-ish pot usually prevented this, but it doesn't seem to have done. So, the result of 3-4 months wait was 6 small, tough carrots!

I give up!

[JayG]

3 feet above the surrounding ground is really necessary for that carrot-fly trick to work, and even then it's not guaranteed (covering with enviromesh or similar is!)

Not too late to sow some more in fresh soil/compost though.....................

[viettaclark]

Don't give up....fresh carrots are yum and my hens like the greenery!
I tried growing in pots and the ones round the edge died due to lack of water but I avoided carrot fly by having them up on a table. Crop was naff and seemed to take forever!!.
Now I grow in the raised beds and debris net. I'm getting quite a good crop...baby carrots this month, plenty more plumping up slowly and sowed more seed for a late crop a couple of weeks ago.
My first attempts in the beds were riddled with that b****y fly!!!

[tosca100]

I say I'm going to give up every year because of carrot fly. Tried putting them in a dustbin on a platform of bricks this year and thought I'd cracked it, they were lovely at first, carefully tended the tomatoes in front to get the smell going when I'd handled the carrots. Then.....all holey.

Giving up again!


Don't use a barrier mesh as the dog "unclothes" anything I cover.

[lazza]

thanks for the encouragement, and suggestions.... no doubt, as I have loads of seeds, I will try again!

The pots weren't off the ground, but will give that a go next time... but maybe not this year as every failure is doubly frustrating because I have SO little space, and need a good success rate!  It's certainly quite annoying pulling up all 30-40 carrots and chucking them all away!

[SnooziSuzi]

I really love fresh carrots but out of an entire row I have only managed to grow 5!  they're still not big enough to pull but (here's hoping) there's no sign of the fly and I'm not going to touch them until they're ready to come up.

It's a risk and it's so tempting to try to pull them to have a look, but past experience of doing this has resulted in fly-riddled roots so I'm not going to.

Next year I'm going to sow an entire bed but I'm going to cover the whole bed in mesh to reduce the number of affected roots... Will keep you posted

[Lardman]

Got a greenhouse ? I put some in mine in Feb this year that grew very nicely and pest free. Most were gone by the time to put the Tomatoes out which made good use of the space too, think they were Furbound or something similar.

[DD.]

Nantes Frubund, no doubt, they can be sown for over-wintering.

Not had a bit of fly out of 4 x 32' rows since I started using Enviromesh.

[Growster...]

This year, we lost a whole 30' row after thinning, but funnily enough, another row about 6' away seems to be clear - maybe it's just the tops I can see, but I'm staying well clear of them all the time - no weeding, no hoeing nearby, just suspicious glances and a wide berth...

Then I heard about the idea of a 'sacrificial' row, where you get the attention of the fly, and they leave the other one alone.

Time will tell, but I'm putting in some more Autumn King today, as there's just enough time to get a crop if the weather stays fair for a few months...

We'll see!

[SnooziSuzi]

I'd heard about the sacrificial row method too, but I wondered whether they really would leave your proper row alone or if they would just have a bit out of this one... a bit out of that one...

[Growster...]

I'd heard about the sacrificial row method too, but I wondered whether they really would leave your proper row alone or if they would just have a bit out of this one... a bit out of that one...

I think you have to muck one of the other rows about a bit Snoozi.

That way, the fly gets across to the sacrificial row, and can't/doesn't smell the other one..

Still not sure if it works, but hey - why not give it a try? I'll definitely not thin these two rows, and sow very thinly with sand as well.

[Christine]

There's the old trick of sowing them amongst spring onions or tagetes to hide the smell. Tagetes look pretty but certainly stink out the smell of everything around.

[plot53b]

So, as the new boy I was reading through the forum and stumbled on this post. We picked our first ever home grown carrots last night - they were the carrot fly resistant type.

All looked OK and we were going to have them for dinner tonight. Reading the comment about 'soaking them', I thought I would give it a try and sure enough - maggots started to wriggle out

Thanks for the tip though about soaking the carrots - feel a bit disappointed after our excitement last night though!

[DD.]

"Fly resistant" is not the same as "fly proof" unfortunately. The only sure fire way is a physical barrier.

[TerryB]

I have a raised bed that is over 2ft high and carrot fly still found them.
This year I'm growing them under a very fine net curtain, so far so good.
I find early nants produce a really nice carrots.