"Broadback" wrote after jane wrote:

I have had phenomenal results with carrots this year in my incredibly
stony soil simply by carving out a rather experimental 6" trench with
a thin trowel and filling it with cheap multipurpose compost, watering
it and sowing the carrots on that. Got perfect roots (give or take the
odd carrot fly) and the control row, 6" away and in the normal soil is
almost unusable except whole in stews. I didn't notice forking in the
compost row (but compared with the soil, I probably wouldn't!!).

I have only successfully grown carrots once, the first year. The second
they were ruined by carrot root fly, this year I covered them with
enviromesh, no carrot root fly, but very few and little carrots. Any help
with combating Carrot root fly? I know of several theories, but would
love to hear from someone who has been plagued by them and found a
resolution.

We had severe problems with carrots, they either didn't germinate, and
nothing at all with fleece protection, and if they did the root fly got them
after the villains had pulled up a few and thrown them about.

Now we grow from our own seed, Long Red Surrey, and get excellent
germination, they even come up like weeds on other parts of the allotment,
self sown.
We also use some scaffold boards on edge around the bed to keep of the fly.
Whilst these boards aren't as high as I would like they do keep off most of
the fly, and anyway, with so many carrots we don't mind losing a few.

--
Regards
Bob
In Runnymede, 17 miles West of London