A bit of harvest

Rain, rain and more rain. Slugs, snails and blight are on the up so before they destroy everything I decided to pull up all the carrots, they are baby ones and the only ones survived the weather and slug attacks. (I grow my carrots in an old water tank, so cannot move it and last night I counted 20 slugs in there, they have won!)

Normally I sow the carrots in containers from late March through April and have a successful harvest starting with baby carrots from late June till the very end of the growing season. I found that growing carrots is easy in containers and it gives a much more reliable and tasty crop than growing them direct on the plot. Heavy soil is a problem for many of us here in the UK and root vegetables do not like that. They need light soil to be able to grow long, straight roots. And to be honest I didn’t really like carrots until I started to grow my own in containers, for me these home grown roots taste so much better than any other carrot I have ever had and I have to say that after tomatoes, carrots come strong second on my must grow list.

If you have a too deep container you can put some non soil material on the bottom before  you add the compost and sand mix. If you don’t have a container then mix a bag or two sand in your carrot bed, this will soften the texture of the soil and give the roots a chance to grow straight. There are two advantages of growing carrots in containers, the roots will be straight and long and also you most likely will avoid carrot fly damage as they tend to fly very low above ground only. If you grow carrots on your plot you can try companion planting; garlic and onions are a good bet to plant around your carrots as their strong smell will deter carrot flies. The strong carrot smell of the foliage attracts the flies, so make sure you don’t disturb the plants and if you need to water them do so in late evening as the flies are not active after dark. Also you can use your home made garlic spray too if you didn’t manage to plant garlic next to your carrots.

See also  Feed those climbing beans

 

First and second early potatoes are ready too. The foliage of the potatoes are eaten by snails and the lower leaves have signs of blight so it is spuds for dinner for the next few weeks ahead. As you can see on the picture they have a scabby skin but that is the subject of an other post.

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