(upbeat music) - No dig carrots, many people ask, how do you grow no dig carrots? There is a growing understanding I feel now about how soil works and how soil life keeps it open, and that we do not need
to physically loosen soil in order for roots to go down and explore. And in the case of carrots
to make a nice long tap root. So that's what I wanna show you here while explaining how I've achieved it. So this is my no dig
garden, everything no dig. I put on compost once a
year in the early winter, so that roughly by Christmas,
Northern hemisphere or as winter begins, the beds are all covered with compost, whatever I'm gonna grow. So I'm not following this usual mantra about heavy feeders and light feeders. Whether I'm gonna grow carrots or potatoes or broccoli or cabbage, I put
on the same amount of compost. And then in this case, the
carrots under this mesh are our second crop. We had lettuce first. There were five rows of
lettuce going along this bed, which is not the widest bed. It's about just over a meter,
3 1/4 feet wide roughly. And we were picking the
lettuce through the spring, starting in early May. And after one of the
picks, on the 13th of June, so that's just over three months ago, it's now the 18th of September. On the 13th of June I drew out three lines along the bed with my hoe. And watered the lines
first with a watering can cause it was quite dry. And then dropped the carrot
seeds in, I just sew by hand, I get the carrot seeds in there in the kind of palm of the hand, and then go along quite close to the soil, just walking speed, dribbling
the seed in like that. And I find that works pretty well. It takes a bit of practice granted, and for larger areas, you
could use a drill, I'm sure. Smaller areas, you could
perhaps do a bit more slowly and almost count the seeds. But what I'm looking for is
carrots pretty close actually. The three rows here got
quite a wide spacing they're just over a foot. So that's around 35 centimeters maybe between the three each row, which I consider quite wide. But these are for winter. So sowing in June, especially if you choose
a suitable variety, you can have carrots to
harvest October, November, even December, possibly
even longer if it's mild. But personally, I prefer to get
them out by say mid December because of increasing slugs in
the soil, which can eat them. And then the other pest
is carrot root fly. And that's what this is all about. So it's a fine mesh, which prevents the root
fly carrots, sorry, laying their eggs on the
soil near to the carrots. And then when the eggs hatch out, the little larvae burrow
down into the carrot. And so I'm really hoping not to see that. I got the mesh on too late last year. I got it on, it was almost
the last day of August. And that was clearly too late cause I lost most of my harvest. You know, it was really bad eating. So that's why this is a serious pest. If it's in your area,
which is quite likely, temperate regions at least, take it seriously and get the cover on before the 10th of August,
this one went on about the 8th and because they start flying again late summer early autumn,
there's two hatchings a year, carrot root fly. First one in the spring,
sort of early to mid spring. So April, May and I
keep my carrots covered all the time in the spring. And then take covers off. You can take covers off
from say middle of June and you can grow carrots without root fly in our climates at least here
between the middle of June and early August with out the cover. But at the moment, I'm keeping it on. I'm even leaving it on until I, just want to get it off to show you because I do take these flies seriously. It's a bit windy now but
they might be flying around almost as we're talking. And they're quite small,
they're hard to see. I'm not aware I've ever seen one. I've just seen the damage. So here's the three rows. After sowing the seeds,
we thin the carrots a bit because sowing by hand, it's very rare that you get that precision. This is not F1 hybrid seed or anything or pelleted whatever, it's
normal open pollinated, not too expensive. It's a company called
Sativa in Switzerland, variety Berlicum. So the moment has come. Oh, there's something
else I just wanna show you before I pull the carrot. Look at this fungi in the
soil with lovely mycelia. Really smells of mushrooms
and forest floor. And that's a good sign of a
healthy no dig soil in my bed. And I'm using a trout. Actually I wonder if I
do need to use a trout. As it happens, I have a
no-spectacular roots to show you. I'm gonna pull just one or two more. Yeah, they're doing all right. That's just really interesting actually. I would say that's a little
bit not so good for no dig because I would hope normally to get a few longer ones than that. There's a slightly long there. I mean, that's an example. But you can see, all of
the ones I pulled out except for that one,
and there's always one, are lovely, straight
roots and decent size. They smell great. And interesting too, again,
about the white mycelia, I'm not worried about that at all. It's quite a must to be able to show you. Cause I think some people if they saw that and they didn't know, they might worry, you know, God, it's white,
is it rotting or what? But no, it's just a fungal deposit on the surface of the carrot. And it's probably the fungi
are helping the carrots to root and find moisture and nutrients. So you can see how loose
this no dig soil is. It's quite amazing actually. You know, I can just bring
up a handful like that. So this is undisturbed soil except I've disturbed
it now but for a few. And if you're gonna
store these for winter, what I would do would
be as soon as I harvest, not clean them, leave a bit of soil on. If it is dry at the
moment, as you can see, we have watered these and it hasn't rained for about three weeks actually. So they're chugging along,
we've forecast rain next week. So I'm happy to hear that. This is how I would do, I
just take all the leaves off. If you leave leaves on root vegetables they continue to pull
moisture out of the roots. So get them off as soon
as you can after harvest. And then I'll simply put
those in a paper sack if I'm gonna store them
for winter, in a cool shed. And I haven't got a
cold store or anything, I find to keep really well, you know just, in a sack like that. Not covered in sand or anything, always looking for the
simplest, easiest option, and there we have it. So I would expect from this bed which is about 10 meters, 30 feet long. Well, I can't put a figure on actually but I think you'd get an idea
from what I pulled there. A serious amount of carrots. And so that summer sowing in
this climate, temperate climate by the middle of June,
I recommend for winter. And then we could start harvesting now. We actually got some for
a slightly earlier farm but the main harvest for me
will be October, November, and then store for winter. (upbeat music)
