preparing soil for carrots

[wormlady]

I also have very heavy clay soil and a plot which hadnt been cultivated in about 6 years so was mainly grass and weeds. The old fellas down the plot told me not to bother with carrots but I perserved and was SO pleased with my crop of really chunky fat carrots!
First, get a small rooted stumpy type carrot (I grew Chantenays, and you can even get Paris carrots which are round and have been cultivated specially for clay soils - I have some of these in but they're not ready yet), then I dug a trench and filled it with used grow bag compost. I planted between rows of leeks and shallots and didnt appear to have any carrot fly problems. One thing to watch tho is that the used grow bag compost will dry out considerably faster than the surrounding clay so water them well.
Best of luck!

[roitelet]

Don't add manure to a carrot bed, it will make the roots fork.

On my heavy, stoney, clay soil I add Sand and leafmold worked in and it seems to work.

[moggssue]

Bramble - did you use shop bought compost? I love your idea of using old water bottles (always up for recycling) but thought the compost would be too rich for carrots? (sorry to be so late, just catching up with all the posts on here!). I used a mixture of compost, old soil and new topsoil and had about 50/50 forked and straight but no pests so I'm happy!