preparing soil for carrots

[MIDDLE AGED BEGINNER]

its certainly an up and down business this veggie growing!! had a great start to week after harvesting some bags of spuds [just some sprouting supermarket varieties i planted in heavy duty black bags- really good result and delicious!]; however was really looking forward to lifting my container carrots and disaster- they were supposed to be a quite small variety but they are puny and forked in many directions- unusable really.

anyway, from everything i have read on here and elsewhere it would seem the compost i planted them in was too rich.

having seen how upset i was the OH has now agreed to me having some lawn to dig some beds for next year and i am planning on having 3 beds for roots, brassicas, legumes-
NOW THE CONFUSING BIT- just how do you prepare the ground for carrots?????? i have heavy clay type soil and was planning on adding liberal amounts of compost, manure and used grow-bag/container soil to all beds after i have dug them over and then leaving over winter for nature to do its bit; now i am reading that carrots dont like composted/manured ground but they like a sandy soil!!! how on earth do i make heavy clay soil ready for carrots and other roots by spring and do i have to treat the bed i am using for roots differently to the other 2 beds????
i was really excited about the prospect of having some real beds but now my head is just full of questions--any help much appreciated. many thanks in advance again.

[carlseawolf]

i seived my soil and just added blood fish and bone ( no compost or manure ) to a depth of 2' and that was done two weeks before i sowed the carrot seed.
the seive i used was the smallest holed chicken wire around a wooden frame and don't stand on the soil afterwards .
a tip given to me this year ; add spring onion seed in with the carrots when sowing to get the carrots spaced more apart

[MIDDLE AGED BEGINNER]

thanks for that carlseawolf! so did it work? sorry i may be being a bit thick here but is that a depth of 2 ft or inches?? [bit of a metric freak i am afraid] the spring onion idea sounds really interesting- do you leave them in until they mature??

[Snadger]

By making yourself a raised bed, say 4 foot wide you can add a mixture of topsoil and sand and have an instant carrot plot!

[carlseawolf]

60cm deep and grew 30cm parsnips with little forking of the roots

[carlseawolf]

and if the soil is realy that heavy do what snadger recomends and add sand as this will lighten the soil and improve drainage.

[moggssue]

My carrots were grown in what was originally a lawn so had very compacted and stony soil which I managed to dig over to about a spades depth and then added lots of topsoil and OH made me a border with decking planks - I used Amsterdam Forcing, which is only a small variety, for my first year and they are excellent, I'm really pleased with them (a bit wonky, but I can live with that!!).

[MIDDLE AGED BEGINNER]

silly sand question

a lot of solutions seem to mention the need for sandy soil- now am i being thick but where do you get the sand from?????? do i just take a sack down to the beach??? or is it something i would buy from a garden centre?

[Birdie Wife]

Horticultural sand is what you need, the stuff from the beach has too much salt in it. Also, it's all different sizes - I discovered to my cost that "any old sand" packs down to an almost concrete hardness, resulting in virtually zero drainage and roots can't get down into it. Horticultural sand is one grade only so the particles move past each other and don't get jammed in together. You should be able to find it at most garden centres.

[zazen999]

Hi.

I use raised beds, I dig and sieve only one bed per year [the carrot one]. It is then only hard work for the first year, as by the time year 2 comes around the soil below where the next raised bed ends is softer due to worms, and veg being grown the year before.

As well as putting a few onions in, pop a few coriander seeds in; and keep trimming the tops to the same height as the carrot tops every few days; it keeps the dreaded carrot fly away.

Another method is to sow the seed in patches and just use a dibber to loosen the soil and mix the sand in there - take out any stones as you go. In between sow stuff that doesn't mind harder soil [leeks are good at tearing up the soil below it]. Carrots will push themselves apart as they grow. Of course it depends on how many you want to grow...

Eventually it will all break down; the first year is always the hardest but it's the same as decorating - 80% of the time spent in preparation means that 20% of the work can be done whilst the crops are growing - over a much longer perdiod.

Roll on next spring's sieving; I quite enjoy it in a strange backbreaking way [every carrot tastes good when they come out long, thick, straight and carrot fly free!!!]

[Snadger]

I'm going to take a leaf out of the showmens books next year and grow some carrots in pipes. I've successfully grown parsnips in them this year with good results so next year, carrots.
I have some six inch diameter plastic water pipes cut about four foot long. Fill with sand, soak sand, put bar down centre and wiggle to form a conicle hole, fill with potting compost and sow the seed. Worked well with parsnips this year so carrots or long beetroot should be fine!

[Matt.]

Very interesting ideas especially the pipe. I saw pipes used for blanching leeks on a tv show so they're obviously very useful! Do you need to water them any extra to stop them drying or do you drill holes in the sides?

As another though I've seen an old bath thats not being used on our allotment site. If this was filled with sand and soil would it work for carrots? I thought the extra height would work well at detering carrotfly. Has anybody else used this idea?

[bramble]

I have used empty water bottles to grow some carrots, parsnips and leeks in. I take off the top first, cut the bottom off, nsert it in the soil, fill with fine compost and sow the seed in. I have had very good results. I did'nt put mine in the garden but stuck all the bottles in a big crate and wass well pleased with the result.

[Polly Fouracre]

I have grown carrots,in the past,very sucessfully in old buckets etc. The best varieties to grow are the long,skinny ones(sugarsnax) or similar.Small,round ones(Parmex etc.) can be grown in gro-bags.

[lainey lou]

My Dad grew some lovely carrots in cardboard loo roll thingies, they were beauties.