Medwyn Williams advises on growing show carrots without using drums or pipes
Amy Allen, by email
Medwyn says: You can grow some carrots without pipes or drums but whether or not they'd be good enough to win at a show is another matter. Many years ago my father always grew his carrots, both long and short, in rows in his garden and he did quite well with them. For the long carrot (the variety then was ‘Long Red Surrey’) he would double dig the row and then make bore holes every 23cm (9in) or so along the row and these would be filled with just sieved soil from the veg plot.
At that time we didn't know about pipes and drums but after some reading l learned that the colour of carrots improves when the roots are warm. From then on it made sense to grow them in old oil drums filled with sand. Not only did the colour improve as they were above ground level, they were also easier to withdraw and get the whole root intact. Things improved further when they were grown under cover and I was able to control the watering much better.
If you can grow them above ground level you would have more success. Carrots require sandy, even textured, free-draining soil to the depth where their main roots form, without any hard lumps or stones in it. This should give you the optimum growth rate and shape for the carrot, and if you happen to have that sort of soil in your garden then by all means try this.
Raising the soil about 23cm (9in) above ground would be an improvement and should grow excellent short carrots. If you have some old buckets or large pots you can also grow short carrots in these using some multi-purpose compost. This year I did a trial by growing them completely peat and soil-free using Canna Coco Professional. The material, though more expensive to buy than ordinary peat-based compost, can be used three times. I filled a 25-litre bucket with the Coco and sowed the seed on top, with the resulting carrots having the best skin condition you could imagine.
l A happy and healthy New Year to all my followers in the magazine and on Twitter.