Carrots - sow in rows or large holes filled with compost

[Samuel1988]

Morning all,

I have some raised beds for carrots and the soil is composed of quite a bit of clay.

I had also previously sowed in rows but the slugs have seemed to bull dosed them all!

So I was wondering would it be just easier to make nice holes with a dibber, fill with compost, and plant a few seeds in it then thin them out to a single plant and have fewer, but bigger carrots?

Thanks for your replies,

Samuel

[Kristen]

Might be worth doing that for Parsnips - they are bigger, and thus you are likely to grow fewer of them, but for Carrots I think its way too many individual holes.

I add several bags of sand to the area where I grow my carrots. They are at the end of the bed, and there are 4 such beds in my crop rotation, so each "end bit" gets yet more sand every 4th year, and its getting to the point where the carrots are not forking as much as they used to!

But the only real issue is forking, which is a nuisance for preparation for the kitchen, doesn't effect things unduly - if you want to Show the carrots all bets are off of course.

If you have stony soil you could sieve it, other than that I recommend improving the soil all you can and living with forked carrots.

Either way, I station-sow and thin, rather than sowing a row (because it always has gaps, and I wind up with fewer Carrots than the optimum number my space could raise)

[Peppermint]

I've grown carrots the last three years by making a small hole with a dibber, filling with compost and sowing with 4 or 5 carrot seeds and cover with more compost. I never thin them. I simply scrape a little soil away to see if a plant is big enough to pull, and leave the rest to grow bigger.

I also sow onions on either side of the carrots.


So far I've had good crops and been lucky enough to avoid carrot fly and slugs. It makes it easier for weeding early on too as the little compost areas are easy to spot.

[skeggijon]

I grow mine in a dolav filled with compost, so they are grown approx 4ft from ground level. I broadcast sow and then scatter some compost over the top.

The idea behind growing in a dolav was that they were too high for carrot fly which I believe are very low flying and also means they have the chance to send out long straight roots.

Works for me so far - no carrot fly problems and get perfectly straight carrots.

[veggiechicken]

A Dolav - that's my new word for the day - thanks

[skeggijon]

My dolavs lol - before sowing carrots