"Bob Hobden" wrote in message
...
"Bertie Doe" wrote ...

Yesterday I lifted my first carrots of the season. As you can see from the
photos, they are looking a bit sad. Something's been eating the Autumn
Kings:-
http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/d...e/IMG_2431.jpg
All carrots so far are undersized with a max length of 100mm / 4 ins. The
James Scarlett are prone to forking:-
http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/d...e/IMG_2432.jpg

The soil is neutral ph, gritty and well drained. The seeds were sown
sparsely so no thinning required. At seedling stage, the soil was firmed
in nicely. All the allotment had cow manure in December and a granular
general fertilizer (twice) throughout the growing season. I can see why
non of the other allotments bother with carrots, but I don't like to give
up on this one. Any thoughts, remedies etc. Thanks


Yes, root Fly. We grow ours in an old 50 gal water tank, this does the
same as the barrier method, the flies don't like flying upwards and keep
near the ground, but was cheaper as we had the old tank and it can be used
permanently. Despite this we have had a bit of root fly on occasion when
the tank was near other stuff but this year when out on it's own none at
all. We also only planted "Flyaway" and Resistafly", so a double barrelled
approach this year that worked.
Decided to give up growing my own seed Chertsey Carrots.
--
Regards. Bob Hobden.
Posted to this Newsgroup from the W of London, UK .

A large "Country" house near brecon grow veg. for sale to local restaurants
The owner planted a "barrier plant" round her carrot plot for the very
purpose of stopping carrot fly getting at her carrots. This was the first
time I'd heard of such a thing.

I'm not sure what the barrier comprised.

Bill

Moonraker wrote:

On 04/10/2011 06:29, harry wrote:
On Oct 3, 6:04 pm, "Bertie wrote:
Yesterday I lifted my first carrots of the season. As you can see from the
photos, they are looking a bit sad. Something's been eating the Autumn
Kings:-http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd220/BertieDoe/IMG_2431.jpg
All carrots so far are undersized with a max length of 100mm / 4 ins. The
James Scarlett are prone to forking:-
http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/d...e/IMG_2432.jpg

The soil is neutral ph, gritty and well drained. The seeds were sown
sparsely so no thinning required. At seedling stage, the soil was firmed in
nicely. All the allotment had cow manure in December and a granular general
fertilizer (twice) throughout the growing season. I can see why non of the
other allotments bother with carrots, but I don't like to give up on this
one. Any thoughts, remedies etc. Thanks
Bertie

Heavy manuring causes carrots to fork if too close to growing time.

They are probably small due to lack of water. However watering has to
be constant. No water followed by lots causes splitting of the roots.

The holes look like carrot fly. I don't have much problem where I am
but no-one else is growing carrots, I think that helps.

In days of yore there was stuff called "Bromophos" that totally
controlled carrot fly, it's now banned. Maybe growers can still get
it.
http://uk.ask.com/web?q=bromophos&se...rc=0&o=0&l=dir
Thanks for all the information on barriers, I'll try that next year.
What does not work for me is enviro fleece. It is impossible (nearly) to
keep them weeded, also the rain does not get through, plus when you
remove the cover to pull some the blighter slip in.
A barrier of fleece worked for me this year and last year. I also tried
to grow without a barrier the so-called carrot fly resistant varieties.
They were a total failure and I've written to the seed company pointing
out that in my opinion they are not fit for the purpose for which they
were sold and demanding my money back. I'm still waiting to hear on
that one.
Bromophoss was effective, so the EEC banned it. The commercial growers
use insecticide products not available to the amateurs.
On my allotment site this year, in North Cornwall, carrot fly was bad.
A lot of my neighbours said they won't bother again, but I will using a
barrier. Without it, forget it.

Peter

On Oct 4, 2:32*pm, "Bill Grey" wrote:
"Bob Hobden" wrote in message

...





"Bertie Doe" *wrote *...

Yesterday I lifted my first carrots of the season. As you can see from the
photos, they are looking a bit sad. Something's been eating the Autumn
Kings:-
http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/d...e/IMG_2431.jpg
All carrots so far are undersized with a max length of 100mm / 4 ins. The
James Scarlett are prone to forking:-
http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/d...e/IMG_2432.jpg

The soil is neutral ph, gritty and well drained. The seeds were sown
sparsely so no thinning required. At seedling stage, the soil was firmed
in nicely. All the allotment had cow manure in December and a granular
general fertilizer (twice) throughout the growing season. I can see why
non of the other allotments bother with carrots, but I don't like to give
up on this one. Any thoughts, remedies etc. Thanks

Yes, root Fly. We grow ours in an old 50 gal water tank, this does the
same as the barrier method, the flies don't like flying upwards and keep
near the ground, but was cheaper as we had the old tank and it can be used
permanently. Despite this we have had a bit of root fly on occasion when
the tank was near other stuff but this year when out on it's own none at
all. We also only planted "Flyaway" and Resistafly", so a double barrelled
approach this year that worked.
Decided to give up growing my own seed Chertsey Carrots.
--
Regards. Bob Hobden.
Posted to this Newsgroup from the W of London, UK .

A large "Country" house near brecon grow veg. for sale to local restaurants
The owner planted a "barrier plant" round her carrot plot for the very
purpose of stopping carrot fly getting at her carrots. *This was the first
time I'd heard of such a thing.

I'm not sure what the barrier comprised.
-

Tagetes. A sort of marigold I think. Dunno how well it works.

"Bill Grey" wrote ...


"Bob Hobden" wrote
"Bertie Doe" wrote ...

Yesterday I lifted my first carrots of the season. As you can see from
the photos, they are looking a bit sad. Something's been eating the
Autumn Kings:-
http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/d...e/IMG_2431.jpg
All carrots so far are undersized with a max length of 100mm / 4 ins. The
James Scarlett are prone to forking:-
http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/d...e/IMG_2432.jpg

The soil is neutral ph, gritty and well drained. The seeds were sown
sparsely so no thinning required. At seedling stage, the soil was firmed
in nicely. All the allotment had cow manure in December and a granular
general fertilizer (twice) throughout the growing season. I can see why
non of the other allotments bother with carrots, but I don't like to give
up on this one. Any thoughts, remedies etc. Thanks


Yes, root Fly. We grow ours in an old 50 gal water tank, this does the
same as the barrier method, the flies don't like flying upwards and keep
near the ground, but was cheaper as we had the old tank and it can be
used permanently. Despite this we have had a bit of root fly on occasion
when the tank was near other stuff but this year when out on it's own
none at all. We also only planted "Flyaway" and Resistafly", so a double
barrelled approach this year that worked.
Decided to give up growing my own seed Chertsey Carrots.

A large "Country" house near brecon grow veg. for sale to local restaurants
The owner planted a "barrier plant" round her carrot plot for the very
purpose of stopping carrot fly getting at her carrots. This was the first
time I'd heard of such a thing.

I'm not sure what the barrier comprised.

Something smelly to hide the smell of the carrots I expect.
--
Regards. Bob Hobden.
Posted to this Newsgroup from the W of London, UK

"harry" wrote in message
...
On Oct 4, 2:32 pm, "Bill Grey" wrote:
"Bob Hobden" wrote in message

...





"Bertie Doe" wrote ...

Yesterday I lifted my first carrots of the season. As you can see from
the
photos, they are looking a bit sad. Something's been eating the Autumn
Kings:-
http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/d...e/IMG_2431.jpg
All carrots so far are undersized with a max length of 100mm / 4 ins.
The
James Scarlett are prone to forking:-
http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/d...e/IMG_2432.jpg

The soil is neutral ph, gritty and well drained. The seeds were sown
sparsely so no thinning required. At seedling stage, the soil was firmed
in nicely. All the allotment had cow manure in December and a granular
general fertilizer (twice) throughout the growing season. I can see why
non of the other allotments bother with carrots, but I don't like to
give
up on this one. Any thoughts, remedies etc. Thanks

Yes, root Fly. We grow ours in an old 50 gal water tank, this does the
same as the barrier method, the flies don't like flying upwards and keep
near the ground, but was cheaper as we had the old tank and it can be
used
permanently. Despite this we have had a bit of root fly on occasion when
the tank was near other stuff but this year when out on it's own none at
all. We also only planted "Flyaway" and Resistafly", so a double
barrelled
approach this year that worked.
Decided to give up growing my own seed Chertsey Carrots.
--
Regards. Bob Hobden.
Posted to this Newsgroup from the W of London, UK .

A large "Country" house near brecon grow veg. for sale to local
restaurants
The owner planted a "barrier plant" round her carrot plot for the very
purpose of stopping carrot fly getting at her carrots. This was the first
time I'd heard of such a thing.

I'm not sure what the barrier comprised.
-

Tagetes. A sort of marigold I think. Dunno how well it works.

I've grown Tagettes ijn the past, but I don't think it was those. Maybe
Tagettes would do the job. I don't know, but the reason for the planting was
to keep the Carrot Fly away form the carrots.

Bill

"Bob Hobden" wrote in message
...
"Bill Grey" wrote ...


"Bob Hobden" wrote
"Bertie Doe" wrote ...

Yesterday I lifted my first carrots of the season. As you can see from
the photos, they are looking a bit sad. Something's been eating the
Autumn Kings:-
http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/d...e/IMG_2431.jpg
All carrots so far are undersized with a max length of 100mm / 4 ins.
The James Scarlett are prone to forking:-
http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/d...e/IMG_2432.jpg

The soil is neutral ph, gritty and well drained. The seeds were sown
sparsely so no thinning required. At seedling stage, the soil was firmed
in nicely. All the allotment had cow manure in December and a granular
general fertilizer (twice) throughout the growing season. I can see why
non of the other allotments bother with carrots, but I don't like to
give up on this one. Any thoughts, remedies etc. Thanks


Yes, root Fly. We grow ours in an old 50 gal water tank, this does the
same as the barrier method, the flies don't like flying upwards and keep
near the ground, but was cheaper as we had the old tank and it can be
used permanently. Despite this we have had a bit of root fly on occasion
when the tank was near other stuff but this year when out on it's own
none at all. We also only planted "Flyaway" and Resistafly", so a double
barrelled approach this year that worked.
Decided to give up growing my own seed Chertsey Carrots.

A large "Country" house near brecon grow veg. for sale to local
restaurants
The owner planted a "barrier plant" round her carrot plot for the very
purpose of stopping carrot fly getting at her carrots. This was the first
time I'd heard of such a thing.

I'm not sure what the barrier comprised.

Something smelly to hide the smell of the carrots I expect.
--
Regards. Bob Hobden.
Posted to this Newsgroup from the W of London, UK

It was definitley something to do with the height at which the carrot flies
fly or aapproach carrot plants.

Bill

On 04/10/2011 17:13, Peter James wrote:
wrote:

Thanks for all the information on barriers, I'll try that next year.
What does not work for me is enviro fleece. It is impossible (nearly) to
keep them weeded, also the rain does not get through, plus when you
remove the cover to pull some the blighter slip in.
A barrier of fleece worked for me this year and last year.

I've used 'enviromesh' for three years. It has made it worth growing
carrots. Rain gets through (if we get any in East Anglia!), and it is
easy to hold down with bricks (and hoops to hold it up!)

I found fleece doesn't last.

Jim Chisholm