Veg4Show

My short carrots are in, you may be saying thats a tad early for short carrots but i grow a re-selection variety of a chantenay red core carrot that reach quite a size and tend to take longer for the stump to actually form. They are not as long as other short carrots and are a lot stumpier and carry more weight at the top than the bottom, reaching in some cases 5 inches across at the top. They always look great on the show bench next to all the ordinary stump carrots, they also grow very uniform so making a set should be very easy.



Ive also managed to get some of my long carrots in before i ran out of sand, so the rest will have to wait until next weekend.

I'm growing a re-selection of "new red intermediate" long carrot which i rate as the one and only long carrot to grow for showing. This variety produces long heavy roots perfect for the show bench.

The mix i am using this year posted on Simon's blog (smithyveg) is David Thornton's mix and is as follows:

45L sieved compost (Irish moss compost)
15L vermiculite
10L sieved coarse sand (silver sand)
6oz Vitax Q4
3oz Lime
3oz Seaweed meal

I have used Westlands Irish moss compost and silver sand in the mix, this is all passed through a shredder 4 times and sieved. (man does vitax q4 stink).