Don’s Tips: Old Husbands’ Tales #1 – Forking Carrots

Today we’re looking at Old Husband’s Tales

The myth is that when you are growing carrots they often fork underground into 2 or 3 separate distorted carrots and that this is caused by hard soils and rocky soils.

That is, that if you had prepared your soil better by digging it over and removing any rocks the carrots would not fork

This is nonsense.

Carrots fork due to a fungus called pythium attacking the growing root tip. This causes forking and brown sunken spots on the carrots.

The prevention is easy. Don’t grow carrots in the same area each year. Rotate your crops. Ensure that your soil is neutral around a pH of 7 and that it is well drained.

It’s all that simple. Tell the dreaded pythium fungus to fork off.

We’ll look at many more Old Husband’s Tales in the next week or two.

Hooroo! Don.