GARDENING WITH THE EXPERTS
The world's finest share their tips for success
It’s all go now as crops can be started, ready for the show bench later this year
Over the past few years, I’ve been sowing my long carrots from early to mid-April with some degree of success, but for some reason last year they weren’t very good.
I grew them in plastic barrels by the greenhouse door where I used to grow long beetroot. I’m not sure whether they had a draught early on or not, but they were very slow getting into their stride. My father used to grow very good long carrots and won at the National Vegetable Society (NVS) Championships many years ago with a set of six that were sown around the third week of March.
As I could be involved with judging at the NVS Championships this year, and therefore only exhibiting at the Welsh branch show, I’ve decided to grow just five barrels of parsnips and five of long carrots. I hope to get the long carrots sown by the end of March, with five bore holes per barrel. The mix I use is a 75L bag of Levington F2S, to which I add 280g of ground calcified seaweed, 85g of Medwyn’s Base Fertiliser, 85g of single superphosphate, 55g of sieved Nutrimate powder and 10L of fine-grade Vermiculite. If you’re going to show carrots for the ‘other than long’ class from around mid to late August, you need to get these sown as soon as possible to give them sufficient time to develop a good stump end. The variety that’s been winning everywhere since I introduced it in 2007 (I can’t believe it’s been that long!) is ‘Sweet Candle’ F1 and I have had some good sets of it for my later displays at t
