Grow Your Own Magazine

I've just pulled up my second bucket of carrots and half of them have turned black.

Any ideas what I've done wrong so this doesn't happen again

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Bren

That doesn't sound great, Bren - what variety are they? Are they rotten-black (vile soggy) or like a carrot ..... but black?

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Hazel
www.hazelandjanesallotment.blogspot.com
update Sun 30/11/2008......Indoor Allotmenteering too!.....

Hazel I'm growing 'Autumn King 2' they've not gone soggy just sort of black on the outside and normal looking inside.

But not 'normal' enough to eat

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Bren

I know that if you try and grow carrots or parsnips in a clay soil the skin is stained? Have they been waterlogged? Carrots also go black when frosted but we aint had no frost yet! Are they all black? Scorzonosa a salsify variant is black skinned.
I often get odd ones which are a very deep purple, bit like a black sheep in the family I suppose!
Not much help, I know, just thinking out loud I'm afraid.

PS A heavy infestation of carrot root fly will turn them black! Look out for little maggots in them.

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My Majesty made for him a garden anew in order
to present to him vegetables and all beautiful flowers.- Offerings of Thutmose III to Amon-Ra (1500 BCE)

Snadger it was about half a bucket of carrots that were black, some all over others with black patches, luckily there's no sign of maggots

After all the rain we've had this year it does sound like my poor carrots have been waterlogged in their buckets even though I'd drilled holes and put gravel in the bottom.

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Bren