Medwyn Williams is growing carrots in coconut fibre
Why not experiment and give these alternative growing mediums a try?
Traditionally I've grown my long carrots in drums filled with concreting sand. However, last year I did an experiment with a company called Canna and grew my carrots using its range of coconut fibre products and nutrient feeds.
I started the trial last summer, using a structure that supported 15cm (6in) diameter pipes that were 1.2m (4ft) in length. The pipes were staged in the corner of my new polytunnel and filled with Canna Coco Professional.
This is a very fine and smooth mixture that is the result of buffering up spent coconut husks to a very high standard.
It's not a cheap product, but I’m assured by Canna that the same material, if the previous plants were pest and disease free, can be reused up to three times, which does reduce the cost considerably.
Once the pipes were filled they were watered well until it was dripping through at the bottom. It’s important to make sure the water has a pH of between 5 and 6. If it's higher you can reduce it with one of Canna’s products called pH-.
After seed were sown, from that point on the carrots were watered regularly using Canna A and B liquid nutrients and maintaining an EC (electrical conductivity) reading of 1.3, gradually increasing to 1.8.
I made sure the water and nutrients were always seeping out at the bottom. The pipes are now in my glasshouse and I had hoped to show a dish of these at the Chelsea Flower Show, before the sad news that the Covid-19 crisis has resulted in it being cancelled this year. The ones last summer weren’t sown until mid-July and harvested early October and the results were astonishing, with perfectly smooth, well-coloured skins.
I'd like to trial this further and see how it would work in a barrel of sand with the holes cored out and filled with Canna Coco Professional and fed with Canna A and B.