"Jeff Layman" wrote in message
...
Chris wrote:
Last year our carrots were ruined by carrot root fly.

It was probably my fault - because I had been adding discarded
root-fly-infested bits of carrot to the compost heap - so that
probably went back into the earth.

Anyway - I want to do better this year.
Someone on Gardeners Question Time recommended growing carrots under
fleece for the whole of their lives.

But if you do that, what about harvesting the carrots?
Won't the flies get in then?
We harvest only half-a-dozen carrots at a time - just enough for a
meal - and so we can't dig up a whole fleece worth of carrots at one
go.
Any suggestions?

Probably entirely wrong as I don't grow them, but I seem to remember an
article on tv which said that carrot root fly flies very close to the
ground. To keep them off your carrots, all you had to do was erect a
polythene screen about 3 feet high around your plants (but not over them).
When they hit this, the flies would just treat it as an obstacle and go
round it, never trying to fly over it.

That's the received wisdom but covering the crop completely would be better
because as soon as a carrot is pulld a scent is released which attracts the
fly, it seems.


I doubt that putting 'infected' carrot in the compost would do any harm, the
holes are made by the inscet coming out of the root rather than going in.

Mary