Carroting!

Wednesday was a nice sunny day, although it was a bit breezy but the weather deteriorated on Thursday with a mostly cloudy day. It was only the second day of the month when the temperature didn’t manage to reach 20°C.

On the plot we harvested some of our carrots Early Nantes which have been grown under enviromesh as protection against carrot fly and planted in slots cut in weed suppressant membrane to cut down on weeding. The carrots have grown well with no tell tale signs of reddening foliage which is often a sign of attack by carrot root fly. 　　

Of course the only true test is what’s underneath all those lovely lush green leaves. This week I decided to find out and then I realised the first real problem of using weed suppressant membrane. Exactly how do you lift carrots without damaging the membrane as I’d like to use it again for next years crop. As Early Nantes is growing along one edge of the membrane it wasn’t too much of a problem moving bricks and timber that were holding down both the enviromesh and weed suppressant. How to get to other varieties in the middle of the bed and membrane might be another matter.

The good news was that our carrots had some good roots. Not the perfect shape of those supermarket carrots but then I’m growing for taste and not perfectly formed roots. The first couple of roots were eaten raw grated to have with a salad and extremely tasty. I’ve just got to work out how to get to some of the other varieties now to test them out too.