Your comments and tips

05 Jan 11, Michael Mitchell (Australia - temperate climate)

Our group looks after the vegetable garden for our company - a disability service. We manage to grow successfully, - lettuce, shallots, silver beet, spinach, tomatoes and cucumbers. However our carrots fail dismally - they are short and stumpy and grossly misshapen. Can you suggest what is wrong?

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06 Jan 11, Chris (Australia - cool/mountain climate)

I'm interested in the answer to this, too. I get exactly the same problem!

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06 Jan 11, Liz (New Zealand - sub-tropical climate)

Carrots prefer light, sandy soil, mulched to keep cool and moist. Light soils give them a chance to grow long roots. If your soil is heavy clay, it is best to grow stump-rooted or chantenay types. A raised bed might be the answer.

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27 Feb 14, Colleen (Australia - tropical climate)

Or dig a narrow trench by inserting the straight spade in and wriggling it. Then fill with sand leaving a 2cm gap to the ground level and then put a light layer of soil, place the seeds, cover with a light layer of soil then water, protect from birds, heat etc.

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26 Feb 11, Joe (Australia - cool/mountain climate)

It sounds very much like too much fertiliser, also carrots prefer open type soils if you have heavy clay soils add about a good handful of gypsum or hydrated lime (same stuff) per square meter and hopefully you should see and grow better carrots

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19 Apr 11, Ben (Australia - temperate climate)

Possibly because your soil is to hard I've heard that if they can't grow down they come out looking like short stubby midgets

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09 Feb 11, adam (Australia - cool/mountain climate)

I grow carrots really successfully every year, twice a year. We don't have Carrot Fly in Australia, as far as I know.Carrots fork a lot when grown in freshly manured or fertilised soil. I grow them about 15 cm apart, the rows that is. I water the soil after raking it even. Then sow the carrots, and then put old fence palings over them and press them down a bit to get the seeds in contact with the soil. If it's sunny, I water the boards lightly every day for a few days, just to keep them moist. This is the trick to germinating the seeds. After a few days, between four and seven, Icheck by lifting up a board. If you see little green shoots that look like new grass, in the area you sowed the seeds, then you have germinated. I then lift the boards up about two inches or so, and put little bits of something under the boards at the ends to keep them there foe a few more days, to protect the new carrots from excess heat. After that, I just take the boards away, and I seem to get very good germination with this method. Carrots don't have a hard growing tip, so if they have to struggle growing down, they will twist and get weird shapes. Parsnips DO have a very strong growing tip, so I plant them together to get the soil opened up for the carrots. Hope this helps. Cheers.

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07 Mar 11, Annerliegh (Australia - temperate climate)

That trick with the parsnips is clever.

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14 Apr 11, Paul (Australia - temperate climate)

on this site it says to avoid sowing carrots and parsnips together?

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02 Dec 11, Nathan (Australia - cool/mountain climate)

I suspect you would plant parsnips at the start of the season, then sows carrots once the parsnips are done. giving you 2 crops from the same piece of soil, pulling the parsnips would make turning the soil easier before planting the carrots. (Unless this is considered a no-no as well?)

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