Medwyn Williams advises on the best compost mix for growing show carrots
David White, Stratford-upon-Avon
Medwyn says: Mixes for growing carrots can vary from grower to grower and county to county, yet they all produce top quality carrots on a regular basis. A few years ago, as an item for Garden News, I asked some top growers to give me their mixes. They were selected from all over the country.
The results were different from each grower, yet they produced winning carrots, with some using a proportion of sieved soil while others, including myself, used only a peatbased mix. I use the same mixture for both long and short carrots and find this does really well for me. I dropped the soil from my mix because it can vary so much depending on where you get it from – it can vary even from different parts of your own garden.
A couple of years ago I asked Ian Stocks from Scotland for his mix which was as follows – one 75 litre bag of Levington F1S, 12oz of finely ground calcified seaweed, 12oz of Medwyns Complete Base Fertiliser and 3oz of Superphosphate, with no additional feeding during the season. Even though the F1S is very fine peat, because the bags during packing pass through rollers you'll inevitably find some lumps within the bag. It does, therefore, pay to pass the compost through a sieve or even through a shredder, which will fluff it up nicely.
This year I did a trial for Canna, the nutrient company, and I filled nine 23cm (9in) diameter pipes 1.2m (4ft) long with their Canna Coco professional. This material is lovely and light but contains no nutrients whatsoever. The pipes were first soaked right through until coming out at the bottom, with water having a low PH between 5.5 and 6. The carrots were then fed through out with Canna A and B liquid fertiliser throughout the growing period. The carrots were superb with a fantastic skin finish. I will certainly be using more of this next year.