Funny shaped carrots

[Tom Goode]

I have some carrots growing in a planter,they have been in since april and the foliage is looking very healthy,the carrots are chanteney ,i have pulled a couple up and they were very strange looking ,a bit like a carrot with other smaller carrots branching off the main one.

They are planted in compost only so no stones to obstruct there growth and they are well spaced,i`m sure they will taste the same but just wanted to know why the odd shapes.

Also how can you tell when a carrot is ready to pull ?

[Two_Sheds]

has the main stem hit the bottom of the pot, and forced it to fork?

[johninblackpool]

Hi Tom

My Chantaney carrots were planted in a raised bed about a foot deep in MPC and also well spaced and they turned in all directions

My conclusions

1. Although MPC is stone free it still has alot of large lumps of material that hadn't fully composted down....... Next year i am going to seive the MPC just to make sure of no lumps

2. I alway thought that as a carrot is a root veg it would need plenty of water to plump them up......... Apparently carrots need very little water the reason being is that they are supposed to go hunting for it and send its main root downwards to look for it.. If you over water them they just send roots out in all directions where the water is near the surface.. This is why the roots are all different shapes

As for when you can eat them... I was unsure of this as this was my first year at GYO and every 2 weeks after the foliage was about 6 inches high i picked one to see how big they were.... and as i don't like to waste anything i ate what i picked.... The 1st one was about half inch long but tasted sooooo sweet then 2 weeks later about 1" long and they just got bigger from then on.....So infact you can pick them as small as you like..... What i did notice was that the best they tasted was about 2" long the taste wasn't quite as good as they got bigger

Hope this has helped you

PS a small pic of one of my carrots below

[vicky]

They can also fork if you plant them in recently manured soil - excess of nutrients?

[Tom Goode]

Thanks for the replys, first the carrots are a long way off the bottom of the planter at least 10" or so,
John your pics look exactly like mine, some made my wife blush

Think i might harvest mine soon as they are definetly big enough now,as for watering i kept them well watered and only twice on the sunny days we had the just started to wilt slightly but watering them sorted them out.

I think next time i`ll try a normal carrot as this is my first time planting anything .
I might put a layer of manure in the bottom of the container and do a 50/50 topsoil/compost mix and it might give a more regular moisture content.

[indigox]

I wish some of my carrots would turn out comedy like those, but they are disappointingly normal so far!

[rana]

They can also fork if you plant them in recently manured soil - excess of nutrients?

If they are planted in MPC without mixing in normal soil or sand my vote is for excess nutrients too.

[Florence Fennel]

If they are planted in MPC without mixing in normal soil or sand my vote is for excess nutrients too.

Hi Rana, have to dispute this I'm afraid. I grow all my carrots in the raised beds which were filled with only MPC (although based on soil with cardboard in the bottom) or in pots in pure MPC and I've had very few comically shaped ones, they've been boringly normal! I very rarerly watered those in raised beds (tented with fleece) and those in containers only when the compost was dry.

[Incy]

I recently pulled a few carrots for dinner. Grown in a raised bed with unused new topsoil in it. One of them came out looking just like the ones in the picture. Made me laugh, and tasted delicious The others so far have been standard carrot shaped.

[Nicos]

Thanks for the piccies- they're great fun aren't they???

Perhaps other peeps can share their funny carrots with us?????

PS- we're picking our first carrot this weekend!!!!!

[rana]

What ever happened to Esther Rantzen and her funny shaped veg?????????