07 Sep - Carrot Growing Experiment Results

I decided this season to try and grow a decent carrot. Not a hard thing for some people I know but, with my stony clay soil, I've never grown a carrot worthy of the name. In April I used two new ways to grow carrots on the allotment (see 11th April 2014 post) and, in good old school science parlance, here are the methods, results and conclusions.

The first method involved creating newspaper tubes, filling them with a mixture of compost and sand then sowing a few seeds on top of each tube - thinning to one seedling per tube. The tubes were stood up in a bucket until the plants had established then the whole tube, plant and all were set out in holes in the ground.

The second method I used was to push a metal bar into the ground about two foot down and to wiggle it around in circles to create a conical hole. The bar was removed and the hole filled with a prepared mixture of compost and sand. A few seeds were sown on top of each hole, again thinned to one strong plant.

Well what were the results and conclusions? Firstly, the newspaper tubes were a bit of a faff to make and to plant out without falling apart. The bar method was easier to do in a prepared bed. The carrots produced by both methods were basically the same so, the bar method is the way to go if growing in poor soils for carrots. Seed is also important, I used Sweet Candle F1 for the experiment, which produces large main crop carrots though I also tried a few Early Nantes as well with the bar method and got good a row of finger length carrots. (Below - a freshly pulled Sweet Candle F1 carrot - not very pretty but a good size).

While my crop won't win any beauty prizes at local vegetable shows they are still the best carrots I've ever grown and I'm delighted. Every carrot is of a good size with the smallest being larger than anything I've produced before. Forking in the carrots I've pulled so far has been minimal though the biggest issue I've had is splitting due to having a dry spell of weather then heavy rain causing an irregular watering pattern. Nevertheless, the odd split won't affect taste.

Conclusions? The bar method is relatively easy to do and a bucket of sand and cheap compost mixture goes a surprisingly long way and will fill quite a few holes. The method of using newspaper tubes is not worth the hassle though an alternative to both of course is to have a barrel or box just for carrot growing but this would cost a lot more in terms of sand and compost. If you are going to grow for shows then a barrel or crate is the way to go. The correct seed is pretty vital, the Sweet Candle F1 produces large main crop carrots which are equally at home on the show bench as well as the dinner plate - they taste great which is the most important thing.

That's it, bye for now ...