Vall's Inbox

Soak them in water for 24 hours before planting. Hope you have some success.

Yes, shouldn't matter that they are soft as long as they have some growing shoots! Better late than bever. You should still get some crops!

I like this tip on thin sowing. I'll give it a go this year Little greenfingers.

I always plant onions and carrots in the same bed and I've not had problems with carrot flies. You can use anything strong smelling - I've seen basil used as well.

The other good idea is to sow the carrot seeds very, very thinly. That way you shouldn't need to thin them out later which avoids releasing the very strong carrot smell which attracts the flies.

that was harsh treesandthings but i dont suppose anyone will pull /pick you up for it here. lol

I have heard, but have not tried, this strange idea to deter the carrot fly : place small handbag mirrors at each end of a row of carrots. The carrot fly (supposedly) sees its reflection in both mirrors and zooms up and down the row, "seeing off" the "intruders" until it drops dead from exhaustion.

By erecting a barrier/net around the bed they have to fly high to overcome it, this then takes them a couple of meters before they come back down to ground level again.

Also they react to smell/scent. If you pull or lift the carrots whilst it is raining or drizzling they can not detect the smell.

I wrote an answer very similar for my college course but used the word "pick" instead of pull/lift. Believe me I lost marks and got told off.

dont know Bulbaholic, its just something i was told by a very eldery gardener when i was a kid. He also grew nasturiums next to cabbages as they seemed to prefer nastis to cabbage. I suspect there will be some science in it.

Seeing the previous two answeres side by side I wonder if they are connected. I have always understood that the smell of onions distracts the carrot fly, but could it just be the height of the adjacent plants?

try companion planting. onions next to carrots are supposed to deter carrot fly on the carrots and carrots are supposed to deter onion fly on the onion.

Carrot fly only fly less than two feet above thr ground. So erecting some sort of barrier two feet high round your carrots is the simplest way. Even fine net curtains would do the trick

Did you grow this/ or where did you see it? I have only seen one with so many flowers in Chile

Theres no reason that they shouldnt. Keep an eye out for green fly/aphids etc. I was looking at mine this morning and I had a few on the new shoots. I flick them off then give them a squirt of rose clear.

No need to intertwine, clip the laurel to the height of where you want your arch to start and then let it remain unclipped to form the arch then clip into shape .it will take a few years,It is better to reduce laurel taking out peices rather than severe clipping as the leaves look awful if they are in halves!!

Better to plant the tubers a spade depths deep than just under the surface. Then as the shoots emerge from the soil cover all but the top two leaves with soil until all danger of frost has passed. 3 fold advantage, no frost damage, no green potatoes and more roots, thus more potatoes.

Plant them with the shoots just below the soil surface c. 18 inches apart. The reason for the spacing distance is that you need to be able to draw surrounding soil up to the foliage as it grows, to ensure that the developing potatoes are always covered. Exposure of the potatoes to sun and light would turn them green and poisonous. An alternative is to heap on soil/compost from another source, as you go along. Best of luck (but I'm no spud expert).