On a lighter note, I'm looking for some help with my carrot crop. I planted the seeds about a fortnight ago, and so far so good - the carrot tops have sprouted out of the ground in a nice row of healthy green. I'm a little concerned, though, because I'm aware I will soon need to thin out the crop otherwise the carrots will not have the room to grow and will end up stunted. But how will I know when to do this, and what should I do with the crops that have been pulled out? Can they be replanted or are they natural wastage? Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Good luck with them. I'm growing some in pots this year, and have others in the ground which I started in pots. I have also planted a few rows, and will not be thinning them out at all. Hope you don't get carrot fly.
Carrots will discolour if the top of their root is exposed to sunlight. Begin your first thinning when the plants are 4 inches tall. First look for the smallest and scrawniest plants to remove from the garden, or those that are growing right on top of one another. Thin the plants to about a thumb's-width apart. You can't do anything with the thinned plants Carrot fly is your biggest concern!
Thank you, AllHell and FHB. The carrot seeds are so small, I can't see how they can be sown any other way than close together. The tops already look nice and healthy, and it seems a shame to discard any of the crops at this early stage. And FHB says he will not thin out his crops, yet the normal advice is to do so in order to allow the carrots to grow.
The ones that I've sown straight into the soil haven't all germinated, so they're not in need of thinning. I've had to pull up all my garlic early,before it grew big because of rust and onion fly. Beetroot doing well, a mixture of seeds planted straight into the soil, and pot-grown to fill in the gaps. Squash and courgettes seem to like the soil in Chelsfield, so plenty of them this year, as well as spuds. Aubergines and a variety of tomatoes at home, so we'll live off ratatouille this summer. Can't make chutnetoo much left over from last year. When nthat's all gone, winter broccoli and sprouts to keep the allotment going in winter. On the fruit front, blackberries, blackcurrants, raspberries, tayberries gooseberries and rhubarb. Oooh aarrr.
That's an impressive array, FHB. So far, I have sown onions, runner beans, and carrots straight into the ground; I have tomatoes, gooseberries and cucumbers growing in reasonably large pots; and my Echinops, Hollyhock and Asters are just about ready to go out in the sunshine. It's only my second year of growing crops, so any improvement on last year's yield will be a bonus. On a side note, I remember meeting the late great Geoff Hamilton at the opening of a new garden centre in Newhaven. Not sure of the exact year, but it must have been the early 1990s. A lovely man with a great voice.
I am growing a fair few vegetables and fruit. Runner and broad beans, six varieties of Tomatoes, Garlic, Raspberries, Cherries, Damsons, pears, Worcester apples and Bramley apples. Blackcurrants, Blackberries. My Wife makes jam, we are terribly middle class, don't you know.
The trouble is the other beasties who eat your produce first, like allium miners, aphids, pigeons, eelworm, carrot fly, slugs n snails and recently in Chelsfield, a rabbit invasion.
I recently bought some copper tape from Waitrose. Apparently, the copper gives the slimy sods a little shock, which is much more preferable to pellets and other harmful repellants.
There are also diseases which can strike without warning, like rust, blight, mildew, and a new one on me, hollow heart. I thought I had my best ever potato crop last year, loads of jacket potatoes, only to find half of them had a hole in the middle.
Are there no end to your talents @DickPlumb A cross between Sir John Gielgud, Percy Thrower and Fanny Craddock. [Although you know nothing about football, of course...]
Actually. I am giving serious consideration to setting up my own Charlton fanzine. I was going to title it "The Forger's Gazette"...which the late Michael Foot MP once labelled the Daily Mail. But then I remembered....we already have the Voice of the Valley
You must have been gutted about that. Could any of the potato be salvaged or does hollow heart affect the whole thing?
Copper tape may work although I have never found it effective myself.... Sheep Wool pellets are the thing to go for, slugs hate em
Sometimes you could salvage part of the potato, it depended on the size of the hole. You couldn't cook any of them in their jackets because you didn't know what was inside. I may have over-watered them.
