Grow Your Own Magazine

could anyone give me any advice on soil type for carrots and anything i can plant around them to deter carrot fly cheers steve

Carrots like a nice light soil that they can easily push their roots through. One of our plots has soil like this and the carrots grow great. The other plot is much heavier as we are on clay and the carrots come out all shapes and about 3 inches long! Growing onions next to the carrots is supposed to deter the carrot fly but I grow Flyaway and Resistafly carrots which do not attract the carrot fly. I get the seeds from www.thompson-morgan.com

Hi i find in a raised bed beats carrot fly cos they fly close to ground any thing over 1 half foot beats him also plant garlic near em they do not like that also if you wait till middle of june carrot fly stop laying hope this helps

we sow them under fleece (early varieties) and so far have never had a problem with carrot fly.

If you have stoney soil like me, stick with stump rooted varieties, I grow Chantenay Red Cored 2 which do very well.Also don't plant carrots in recently manured ground, it will promote forked roots.

As for carrot fly.....garlic works for me!

Dig the ground well, put on a general purpose fertiliser a week before you sow, and sow thin-ish. When you thin them out be careful not to bruise the carrots that remain and take the thinnings well away. Intersperse rows of carrots with onions. And you should beat the carrot fly.

Really early sowings and really late sowings also seem to fare well.

The ground wants to be well dug and relatively un-stoney, and not recently manured.

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I used to add a lot of sand to the soil and pots when I grow carrots, they germinate better and I always got good results. I also kept them well netted because of carrot fly....beasts!

Andrewo

cheers everyone . what kind of sand could i add to the soil intended for my carrots. cheers steve