How are your carrots?

[grahamhobbs]

Take heart if your carrots are not up to supermarket standard
"Yesterday I passed a mountain of carrots in a gateway. A couple of cows were half-heartedly munching at them. They had been piled there deliberately along with thousands of other tonnes of carrots deemed not fit for human consumption. These were carrots specifically aimed at our plates via the auspices of a supermarket chain. Yet for every 10 carrots grown, seven are rejected by supermarkets simply for being the wrong size or shape, so they are dumped. If the grower has animals to feed them to at least they get used, but many must just be left to rot or are ploughed back into the fields without ever being harvested."
Quote by Monty Don from the Gaudian November 2005.

[Durgan]

Take heart if your carrots are not up to supermarket standard
"Yesterday I passed a mountain of carrots in a gateway. A couple of cows were half-heartedly munching at them. They had been piled there deliberately along with thousands of other tonnes of carrots deemed not fit for human consumption. These were carrots specifically aimed at our plates via the auspices of a supermarket chain. Yet for every 10 carrots grown, seven are rejected by supermarkets simply for being the wrong size or shape, so they are dumped. If the grower has animals to feed them to at least they get used, but many must just be left to rot or are ploughed back into the fields without ever being harvested."
Quote by Monty Don from the Gaudian November 2005.

The carrot discard issue is very real, particularly if carrots are not grown in the most appropriate soil.

This discard problem has been solved by creating "Baby Carrots" or the cute, little cocktail carrots. The carrots are all washed, machine shaped, steeped in chlorine. since they have no protective skin. Pop the bag and eat! The sheeple buy them and love them. I consider them poison. Never buy a carrot without the top.

The inventor of the new carrot preserving system utilizing discards made a fortune.

[Cloud]

Well, I was eating baby carrots for lunch. But the were pulled out the ground minutes earlier, and all had lush green tops. They tasted absolutely gorgeous. The rest now have room to grow a little.

If I could grow enough carrots I'd never by another one.

[Green Aura]

Just to go slightly off topic for a second (who me? ).

OH put in some seeds at the weekend, without supervision. He's planted carrots in seed modules! Can you transplant them?

He's not getting his hands on my seeds again

And yes it's criminal, the waste. But you'd think if the growers had any common sense they'd find alternative uses - chutney etc. Surely they don't have to be pretty for that

[Gem]

I have transplanted carrots before under strangely similar circumstances.. They dont like it much but a fair few survived. I left them until they were about an inch tall before transplanting..

Why don't they sell them as 'irregular' packs for half the cost??? I would buy them!!!

[Millymollymandy]

I found supermarket fresh carrots tasted better than mine, and that's even after I cut out all the black bits from root fly.

[Peggy Sue]

I had my first few carrot this week, never did understand why shape was so important.
MMM you must have better supermarkets over there, here they sell you orange carrot shaped water

[Christine]

I've got stony clay and have never managed to grow a crop to maturity (carrot fly gets any that reach a decent size) but this year I had another go and planted some Maestro (supposedly carrot fly resistant) and Rainbow in the bed. There are about five Rainbow still growing but the Maestro is doing pretty well. I don't dare thin them in case it attracts the fly but I try to sow very thinly and they're a reasonable size already - about the size you get in bunches of 'young carrots' in the shops.
I've also planted little round carrots in a big tub (I ate some last night - very tasty!) and the remainder of the ill-fated Rainbow, and some early Nantes in plastic crates (the sort that stack) full of compost and have put them on top of a pallet, which should take them above the carrot fly's flight path. I fear the worst for the latest sowing: as they seemed slow to germinate, I bethought me of the 'plank' method reported elsewhere and hid them under the pallet to stay cool. Yesterday, there was a slugtrail straight across the top, which suggests they may have germinated and been eaten already