Carrots in a bath

[JennyGiraffe]

This might be really silly question.....

I have aquired a bath today which I thought I could grow carrots in (it's going to take years to get enough stones out of the garden to be able to plant them in the ground!), so, in my books it says that rows of carrots should be 15 cms apart, which leaves me with two (potentially very blond!) questions:

1. Do I have to leave a 15cm gap from the edge of the bath to the first row of carrots or just that space between the actual plants?

2. A while back on the Big Dig on UKTV Gardens a lady was planting carrots in what looked like an old water barrel, she had sown them in decreasing circles and unless TV had really distorted how the space available, there was no way there was 15cm between the circles - so does this mean that amount of space is not realy necessary?

Also, if anyone happens to know how many litres of compost it takes to fill a bath do let me know!


Thank you!

[Rocketron]

You don't need to leave gaps in a bath as you won't be walking up and down the rows to weed.
I should think between 3 and 4 75 litre bags would be sufficient. If not, chuck in some more.

[JennyGiraffe]

Ok, thanks, the weeding part didn't occur to me!

The bath is now insitu so I'm off to give it a bit of a clean. Is it sad to be so excited over having a bath in your garden lol!

[Herbie]

Please let me know how your carrots turn out, I'm also doing mine in an old tin bath.
My garden isn't stone free and I thought this may be a solution to avoiding the carrot fly as its over 30 inches high.

[rustylady]

Please make sure you have adequate drainage, particularly if you're using a tin bath Herbie.

[terrier]

To save on compost, put a good layer of broken bricks /stones/polystyrene packing in the bottom of the bath, this will also help with drainage. Unless you are growing carrots for showing you won't need the full depth of the bath.

[JennyGiraffe]

Terrier, I wish I'd known that before I started, I have a ton of stones/bricks etc to use up that I have 'harvested' from the garden.

I can officially confirm that it takes 264 litres of compost to fill a bath!!

[Snadger]

I would just broadcast them thinly and pull out any that seem too close together. The height of the bath may deter carrot fly which like to fly close to the ground!