Spot the carrot
Being a gardener means being stoic: you have to take the rough with the smooth and try to ignore, or learn from, failures. I was determined to grow decent carrots this year and sowed them in beds that were ‘improved’ with sand so the soil was light and not too rich. I watered them regularly with ‘garlic water’ to keep carrot fly at bay but all to no avail. The bed above was sown with rows of carrots interspersed with a row of candytuft for beneficial insects, mignonette for scent and for bees (honeybees love it) and a row of summer savory which I hoped would be smelly enough to disguise the smell of the carrots too. But where there should be carrots there are bare rows.
The carrots have been falling like trees in a storm as the carrot fly have been worse than ever. The leaves are turning yellow and pink and the plants collapsing.
Maybe next year!
The Biking Gardener 
at least now I can admit my carrots are rubbish to nothing again and my broad beans all died 80 plants grown from seed planted with care and not one bean . BUT last night we ate fresh peaches and clotted cream so win some lose some
Thats bad news about the broad beans! Mine went in late and still are not ready but they are coming along. Good news about the peaches though 🙂 yum!
That’s the only attitude to have when you’re a gardener; enjoy your successes and the rest will be better next year.
Sorry to hear that after all your efforts to fool those carrot flies. Makes us struggling gardeners feel better though that you have the occasional failure too. My lettuce is great this year which is great as it is what I use most of.
yes I will give up on the carrots this year! You can’t win them all! Glad to hear your lettuce are doing well though 🙂
Bad luck, Geoff