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We planted a bunch of carrots this year and they got very large in diameter but only about 4" long. Some of them are actually more round than they are long. They just don't taste the best either. This stubbiness is this a sign of not enough water or fertilizer? I tilled the garden up a couple of times with a tiller and tractor and got the soil loose at least by 6".
Any comments would greatly be appreciated.
murph
Murph, I don't really have an answer, but my first thought is which variety of seed did you plant? Some varieties of carrot grow long and slender and others grow like you said. I'd be inclined to think it was the variety rather than anything you did wrong. And I tried some of the short ones myself and didn't care for them.
Bird,
The whole thing is goofy, my carrots, the rutabegas we had to through them all away because they were so hot you couldn't stand them, our sweet corn at best tasted terrible, the tomatoes got to the green point and that was it they never did get red. Had a couple of soil samples taken and everything is good there.
Oh well will give it another shot next year.
murph
Murph, I guess there are hortoculturists who would know, but for us amateurs sometimes weird things happen. I had one year when I set out "heat wave" tomato plants that produced big beautiful tomatoes, but like you said, they stayed green; never did turn red. And twice I had carrots that produced a leafy top, but no decent carrot root. Our radishes were always an early crop and I tried a couple of times to plant a second crop when they were gone; no luck at all. Then one year, I planted more radish seed on Labor Day, made some of the best radishes we ever had and some grew to the size of apples and were still firm, crisp, and sweet all the way through. I'd never even seen a radish as big as those, much less one fit to eat. And of course I don't know whether it was the seed, the weather, the soil conditions or what that made the difference.
Carrots definitely need lots of water and loose soil.
I would have loved to have sent you some of our rain surplus to help you out. I lost my whole second planting of beans to to too much water and insects. I couldn't spray or dust because the rain would wash it off.
Like you said, maybe next year....
Pulled my first ones up last night. And mine were also a little stubby. Not "bad" tasting, just a little bland. Now my cantalope? that's a different story. My wife says it the best she has ever had. [img]/forums/images/icons/laugh.gif[/img] Guess I did SOMETHING right.