Greyed Carrots

[eph101]

I'm a huge novice when it comes to growing carrots, and this years my 'crop' fell pretty short. In around June my few lone carrots (which I sowed in Feb) seemed to finally have started thriving, one of which seemed to take over my whole veg patch, but on pulling up the carrot was grey/brown and weedy. Did it rot or did I pull it to early? I am trying again now, in slightly better conditions, but any advice is very welcome.
Thanks,

Ed

[KittyColdNose]

Hi Ed, do you have a photo of it?

[eph101]

Unfortunatelty not, I threw them away (only a bit annoyed). I've tried googling it and had no luck. It didn't look (or taste) healthy, but the foliage was huge, which is why I'm a little confused. I just assumed a healthy looking plant would come up well.

[KittyColdNose]

It's the grey bit confusing me. I had some last year all leaf and no root. Hmmm. Where are you growing thwm and what is the soil like?

[eph101]

They get good sun at least half the day and they're in a large 'raised bed', a soil-filled crate (the soil is a mix of mulch and basic multi-purpose as my gardens own is unworkable and terrible) Other vegis grow really well in the same mix, but I do have some issues with beetroot too- so it may be a root veg problem. They got to about four inches long, but looked a bit wilted, somethign like they'd been at the bottom of a fridge for a month. So maybe they stopped growing after a while, but the leaves continued...?

[SarzWix]

What do you mean by 'mulch' that's mixed in your compost? If it's anything nutrient rich, that might be part of your problem, carrots don't do so well then. Next year, try multi-purpose compost mixed with a bit of sand and/or bagged topsoil. Also, sowing them later might help, perhaps late March/early April.

[eph101]

It's an old shipping crate and the bottom foot or so was built up with older compost, grass cuttings and leaves, with bundles of multi-purpose over for the next two feet or so. It could well be overly nutrient rich though (I never knew carrots were picky before, I always assumed they were faily fail safe) I did wonder whether I'd planted too early, so I guess you're right about that too- Thanks a lot.

[SarzWix]

Took me a couple of years to 'crack' carrots. Sometimes takes a couple of sowings to get them to germinate though

[zazen999]

Too wet? Got by carrot fly? It's hard to tell without a photo, try pulling another and post a photo