I've found that carrots harvested in the Summer aren't as sweet as carrots harvested in the cooler weather of Fall, especially if the Summer carrots aren't watered enough. Too much nitrogen in the soil, inconsistent watering, and a rock can all cause a carrot to fork. And it doesn't matter what stage the carrot is in, it should be uniform in color throughout.

The second carrot from the left looks rather gnarly, have you noticed any insect damage on them? Tiny little holes maybe?

Rodney

This post was edited by theforgottenone1013 on Sat, Jun 29, 13 at 21:31

My experience has been that carrots are kind of hard to grow. I spend a ridiculous amount of time preparing the bed, because carrot roots that encounter obstacles fork or kink to get around them. The weeding and thinning during the seedling phase also seems to be never-ending, but again, you either do it early or don't get good carrots. I do well with the big carrots like Yellowstone or SugarSnax from spring sowings, but the Nantes types do better in the fall.

Carrots certainly can be tough. I had the same problems as you and all kinds of splitting as well. I finally broke down and built a raised bed specifically for carrots. They need deep, soft soil which wasn't gonna happen in my regular garden. Watering every day that it didn't rain is also required to prevent splitting. Now I have splendid carrots. I will extending my carrot bed next next year.

I did the same thing. No way I'd get carrots in my heavy, stone-filled clay.

Picked the first ones this week. Still young, tender and sweet.

Dang! I have raised beds, knowing that I couldn't grow in my soil--also renting a townhouse at the moment, so the options are limited. I made sure not to buy the long carrot-types; my soil is about 8" deep.

Just curious, how long do they need to be in the ground (in general--because I don't remember what types I got)? I made the mistake of not saving the package. I planted them a week or two prior to mothers day. The carrots I pulled are lacking in color and flavor...not to mention the obvious shape issues.

That's a symptom of hard soil for certain.

Longer than that.

I planted mine in April and they're just getting big enough to harvest now, by no means full-sized.

Get some hardware cloth with 1/4" holes, attach it to a 2x4 frame, and dig and screen the carrot section of your bed to 14", adding fine organic matter to loosen clay soil. Once I did that, my carrots looked perfect (but only tasted just a little bit better).

I add some sand, too. Keeps the bed from settling quite so much.