The Carrot Challenge - Grow carrots with me in 2016!!

[Snoop Puss]

Wow! Bearded dragons look fantastic.

Back on topic: my carrot beds were overwhelmed with weeds. Only good thing about all this rain recently is that the weeds pull out nice and easy. Fortunately the carrots themselves don't seem to have suffered from the weeds or the weeding.

Will be sowing Purple Sun and Atomic Red next week, maybe even some Nantes 2 (we eat loads of carrots), and some parsnips at long last.

[Penellype]

The parsnips are an experiment, so I don't know how well it will work. I'm growing Hollow Crown, about 10 seeds planted carefully in a circle in a 30 litre bucket, with 2 seeds in the middle:



The bucket is about a foot deep. Obviously these are only going to be small parsnips - the size of a large carrot if I am lucky.

[muddled]

hmmm...think I'll join you! Have plenty of seeds and they say they don't keep....got the odd flower bucket knocking about too....

Thanks Penellype!

[Penellype]

Marion carrots sown on 4th May are germinating today. The warm weather clearly contributed to a much faster germination time of only 11 days.

[Small pumpkin]

Bucket number 8 sown with Nantes

[Penellype]

First carrot harvested from the pot of Nantes Frubund sown on 22 Feb. These have been grown mostly under lights then on the windowsill and finally in the growhouse. A bit green on top but not a bad effort in a very small pot

[KevinM67]

10 buckets on the go and they are growing away nicely (if we weren't moving, I'd be sowing more)

I don't think I'll ever try carrots in the ground again - Morrisons 10 inch buckets are the way to go from now on.

[Small pumpkin]

I was going to do 10 buckets but I'm stopping at 8 (running out of space). But they are all doing very nicely.

[SusieG]

My early sown ones - rubbish..!!!
Later ones - thriving..!!

[Jay22]

Well the carrots growing in the buckets have lost most of their tops...even with the slug tape round the bucket. Then this morning I noticed Mr. Magpie toddle over to the bucket...could he be the culprit?

[Shadylane]

Just caught up with the thread. So far I've sown tendersweet, Amsterdammer 2 and some rainbow ones. I sowed some in half a bin in the greenhouse on 12th March. They're doing well but need thinning. I sowed a second batch in flower buckets, again in the greenhouse, but not sure when, probably April. I've since put these outside so the slugs can thin them, though they don't seem bothered which is very odd.

I grew them in the bin a couple of years ago and day by day they gradually vanished. I was careful to check for sluggies this time though and so far so good.

I also sowed some at both plots under fleece/enviromesh in April. These never germinated so sowed some more yesterday and today. Haven't had much luck with growing in the ground so will be surprised if they do anything but we'll see.

I was going to leave it at that but now you lot have got my fingers twitching on ebay listings for some more. Maybe I'll grow some in buckets in the polytunnel- not much room at home. Just wondering if the carrot fly will find them in there. Mind you if the weather doesn't improve the door will be staying closed anyway.

[Penellype]

Another couple of carrots from the pot sown indoors on 22nd Feb - getting bigger



The turnip is in the photo because its the biggest undamaged turnip I've managed to grow so far.

[Martin H]

I had a carrot from my 18th Feb pot in my salad this evening. Very nice it was too! About the same size as Penellype's.

[Penellype]

Finished the first pot today. The 2nd pot (Nantes frubund sown on 1st March and grown indoors until 1st May) is about ready to eat as far as I can tell. These will just nicely fill the gap until the first pot of Marion are ready - these are growing well.

[Penellype]

2 carrots from the pot sown indoors on 1st March (Nantes Frubund) compared with the smaller Marion sown outdoors on 6th March.