At last! Carrots!

We harvested our first ever decent bunch of carrots the other day.  It may not be horticulture’s greatest achievement but after several disappointing years, it is a relief and pleasure to smell home grown, earthy carrots.  Unlike those from the supermarket, they actually taste of carrot. 

Carrots are a staple of any vegetable rack so we couldn’t give up trying.  Ironically, we do not have a problem with carrot root fly.  For us, germination has been a challenge, due we think to our cold starts to the season.  I try to sow as many vegetables as possible in modules and keep them warm in the greenhouse or cold frame until the weather improves.  But carrots don’t like being transplanted and last year it took four sowings to get any seeds going and then of course the slugs had to come along and munch half the crop before they could grow into plants.

For those that did survive, we did eventually see substantial fronds developing and they appeared to grow on quite well.  However, when the moment of truth arrived, all we found under the surface of the soil were stumpy forked specimens.  They were virtually unusable in the kitchen. 

This year has been a very different story.  We got serious with carrots!  Doc worked hard to improve the soil in the raised bed.  He removed as many stones as he could but did not add any more compost so that the soil was not too rich - which is apparently one of the causes of forking.  Also, I covered the raised beds with cloches to give the seeds extra protection.  I invested in a soil thermometer and did not dare to sow carrot seeds until the reading was above 10 C.  We waited patiently – carrot seeds can take up to 3 weeks to germinate - but we were rewarded with several rows of green shoots following the first sowing.

I kept the bed completely weed free and used organic slug pellets even though a dry summer has reduced their numbers.  And again, we waited and watched.

Whether it was the different weather factors this year or our improved good husbandry, I don’t know.  But the result is we have some Very Useful Carrots.  We don't feel smug though, we feel very humble.   The supermarket veg may be bland and unappealing but at least it's there.  Growing them ourselves has been hit and miss so we must never take a carrot for granted again.