Thursday 17 January 2013

HELP! MY CARROTS HAVE MUTATED


My garden has been going so well. Bok Choy, lettuce, tomatoes, even the corn is very close to being ready for eating. However, the one thing I am having no luck with is carrots. My carrots are mutated. They grow all twisted around each other. Here is a photo...



Ok, so don’t laugh at my poor carrots. Sad looking things that they are. Please give me advise! What do I do to make my carrots grow straight and not all twisted around each other? We are a house of carrot eating people. I need/want to grow my own, but these weird things would just look odd in my salad. What went wrong, can some gardening person please explain?


This image has nothing to do with carrots, I just love the pure joy on Jarvis's face when I let him play in water. Plus he is much cuter than the carrots.

14 comments:

  1. I miss my garden so much! Anyway, all I know about carrots is that they need to be planted in a well grubbed soil without rocks and aren't they too closes to each other? I'm not an expert in gardening but I love it! I hope I helped a bit.

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  2. I did planted them with distance. But a grubbed soil? Will have to goggle this.

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  3. carrots need a good depth of fine earth to grow straight. Potting mix well mixed in or just straight out potting mix is the answer....Found this out the hard way.!!!

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    1. I built up beds with a depth of about 15cm, but it went on top of really hard dirt. From what I have now been told I think I need to dig down and loosed the underneath dirt as well. I will take your advise and mix potting mix into the area of dirt I am going to plant with carrots.

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  4. ooh, I'm wondering if you have a bad case of nematodes in the soil. They can be treated but they are persistent.

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    1. Hmmm going to have to google that. I don't even know what nematodes are! Sounds nasty.

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  5. Oh dear, they do look funny.
    Carrotts like soil a little loose, they also must be thinned out to about 8- 10cm apart
    and help them with manure or some blood and bone, a lot of fertilisers are high in nitrogen and will give you lovely big tops, but not so good carrotts.
    If you find nemetodes keep them at bay by interplanting with basic yellow or orange stinky, round, puffy, flowers...name escapes me for the moment !!!!!check back later:)

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  6. I did not fertilise at all. But I think my soil is way to hard. Will have to put my back into action and loosen it before I replant.
    Stinky yellow flowers, sounds...um interesting

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    1. Stinky yellow flowers....Marigolds!!!!! great companion planting,maybe you could get the earth worms to help,... dig in some compost, cover with some mulch(straw, grass clippings etc.), keep moist....should work.

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  7. Ha, they do stink. Will compost and mulch before my next planting. Thanks for the help. I really appreciate it.

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  8. Or very poor spacing. Be sure to thin to about 2" apart by three weeks after germination

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    1. I didn't do this either. Rookie trying to learn here

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