The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Growing => Vegetables => Topic started by: suziequeue on July 24, 2015, 09:43:53 pm
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We've had a great year for carrots this year.
I planted them in a trough about two feet above the ground and none of them have been touched by carrot fly or anything.
I would like to use the same trough next year but I am mindful that it's not good to plant the same things in the same place each year.
I've only got one trough though……..
Anybody got any thoughts or experience about whether it's do-able to grow the carrots in the trough again next year?
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If you take out the compost/earth and put it where you're going to grow peas/beans and fill your trough with fresh compost/earth then no problem. If you can't do that then I would think you would still be ok :fc:
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As you've had no evidence of carrot root fly at all, then you should be fine to grow them in the same soil again from that point of view.
However, by growing a crop in the same place in successive years, you use up the nutrients that particular plant needs. Add some well rotted compost, but not manure (fresh manure and carrots leads to forking - I'm sure you know this) to make up any depletion of soil nutrition.
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Don't believe the old wives tale about carrot flies not flying up to high raised beds.
All my veg beds are brick built 3 x 3 feet square , 900 mm /36 inches up from the concrete paths , we live at 117 mtrs above sea level .
The carrot fly have devastated most of the carrots that I have not treated with a pesticide , this also included the supposedly resistant " Flyaway " carrots .
Humidity and temperature seem to have a major effect in the strength of the attacks .
Disturbed carrot foliage scents definitely attract them , I placed one of the yellow sticky cards two feet up above the top of the raised carrot bed bed one year . Then I bruised a few leaves and got loads of the little sods stuck to the card over the next two hours .
There were not as many on a fresh card that was used in the same manner one windy warm day .
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Thanks for all your responses. I will work the wisdom into my planning.
I think I will change the compost and be more wary of carrot root fly in future.
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<<The carrot fly have devastated most of the carrots that I have not treated with a pesticide , this also included the supposedly resistant " Flyaway " carrots>> .
Cloddopper - there's no need to pollute your carrots with pesticides - enviromesh insect mesh works extremely well if you keep it on from sowing to harvest, well pinned down at the edges. It's re-useable for many years.
I agree about the little varmints being able to fly higher than 2' :rant:
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I tried the mesh idea & had a few issues with it as most of my 36 inch high raised veg beds are 9 or 12 square feet each in area though they are all linked in sets of 4's ,7's or 8's.
Each bed is divided into a grid of single square feet the carrots and many other crops are station sown on each grid square foot through clear perspex masks in various patterns that run from 1,2,3,4,5,6, 8,9 ,12 & 16 stations per sq foot .
Most of these beds have two or more crops in the squares , some such as onions suffer under the mesh , any that have single greens ie over wintering cauli & cabbage in an adjacent square foot seem to still suffer from sodding butterfly attacks .
No matter even if I've covered the whole bed and used bricks to weigh the mesh down .. the cabbage white butterflies can often lay eggs through the fine 0.75 mm square grid mesh woven nylon sheeting , you don't find out till one day you lift the mesh to find that there are some tiny caterpillars chomping away at the greens .
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I grow my carrots in raised beds and only have the odd one affected by carrot fly.
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I'm growing mine in troughs on stands as well - not to reduce the risk of carrot fly but because of shortage of growing space. So far I haven't noticed any carrot fly damage. I wonder if the basil and coriander growing nearby is putting them off.