[hot house heroes]

ive thought of trying a little experiment with my carrots this year planting a few in clear plastic bottles inserting them in the ground and monitoring there growth last year i had a great crop ( i thought  ) fantastic foliage but when it came to harvesting the carrot was destroyed, my idea is to keep a visible tab on the growth has anyone tried this before if yes what was your results

[HappyHippy]

Hiya,

I've not tried it myself, but don't see why it wouldn't work.
I've seen kits for kids where carrots, leeks etc are grown in big test tubes to let them watch - so obviously carrots are capable of growing in a restricted space.

On the subject of your destroyed carrots - was it pest damage that destroyed them do you think or the actual pulling of them out the ground ? Heavily manured ground that's not had time to settle is bad for causing forks in carrots, perhaps it's been something like that or our friend the slug (evil little blighters!) in which case they might be able to navigate your bottle and get the carrot anyway.

I'm sure you'll get plenty more advice from people more expert than me though- good luck and let us know how it goes.

Karen

[hot house heroes]

hi hh thanks for your reply im hoping our intruders will attack some of the plants it will let us see at what stages of growth they are being attacked and how long for ill keep you posted 

[doganjo]

So what will you do - dig up the plastic bottles every now and then to check the carrots?  will the bottoms of the bottles be cut off so they can get water or are you going to fill the bottles with soil and water them every day?

[hot house heroes]

hi there ill trim off so much of stopper end incert that end in the ground then what ever attacks the plant we can watch & see the problem

[sabrina]

Interesting idea, I intend having a bash with the bottles after reading in a mag. about one man using large yogurt pots to keep slugs  and other horrible things of his growing plants.