Over a Kilometre of Maincrop Carrots Wanting Attention...

But help is at hand.....

One of many reasons for starting this Blog was that  sometimes I felt left 'outstanding in my field' . Sharing the workload even virtually seemed like a good idea. Well it seems to have worked on a practical 'right here' level even before I've gone public'with this (some kind of modern day witchcraft?) 

Four willing helpers handweeding the maincrop carrots meant it only took half a day, a large flask of tea and a packet of digestives to accomplish.

 What has also helped massively with direct sown crops is a very handy piece of kit known as a flame weeder. It's a rather exciting looking wheeled trolley with five gas burners, I'll get someone to take a photo next time I'm using it at dusk....Can't wait eh?

The principle (briefly) is cultivate the ground you're going to grow on: leave the soil undisturbed for at least ten days* and let weed seedlings start to germinate: sow your crop direct: wait for what you believe is the crop germination time minus one day (nerve wracking but there are tricks for this): run flaming trolley very slowly (its a bit like horticultural Tai Chi) over the weeds to cook them: then with luck (and judgement) next day or two.... Voila crop comes up into weed free soil.

This you understand is the theory, get the timing wrong and you have some very weedy carrots which take weeks not half a day to sort out. Or you end up burning off all your crop seedlings

This year germination has been very good, we are hoping to break the 1.8kg single root weight....Ooo! Ramping up the suspense!

And of course there's always the enormous potential gallery of comedic rootery to look forward to....

*this is known in Devon and praps further afield as a "Bastard Fallow" Oh I say!