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12 armed carrot

OldSaltOldSalt Posts: 2
in Fruit & veg
has anyone seen a carrot like this, I've been growing carrots for years, but this year all my carrots are short fat and stumpy may with more than one are. This carrot has 12 arms, and weights 2lb 2oz

Posts

  • Pete.8Pete.8 Posts: 11,340
    I've not grown carrots for a long time, but when I used to the usual reason for a multi-armed carrot was either that the soil they were grown in has recently been manured/fertilized (so too rich for them) and/or the soil is very stony.

    Gonna be tricky peeling that one :)


    Billericay - Essex

    Knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit.
    Wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad.
  • a1154a1154 Posts: 1,108
    Thanks for posting Fairway, you gave me a good laugh! 
  • LynLyn Posts: 23,190
    Don’t peel it,  just cut  its legs and arms off and scrape them,  they’ll taste good.

    Gardening on the wild, windy west side of Dartmoor. 

  • DovefromaboveDovefromabove Posts: 88,147
    edited October 2021
    I sent your picture to my brother who is a carrot farmer ... he says it's a special variety ...  an attempt to grow a special sort for decorating carrot cakes.

    Another suggestion is that it's been crossed with an octopus to produce a carrot for communal family dining for rabbits ... a bit like everyone having a chicken drumstick  ;)

    Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.





  • DovefromaboveDovefromabove Posts: 88,147
    edited October 2021
    My brother has just emailed with an explanation 

    “The real reason is a particular type of nematodes 😡in the soil. 
    They need to not grow 🥕 carrots on that piece of land for many years. 
    The little bu**ers nip off the growing point so the carrots sends out other growing  points and then as these get eaten the plant repeats the action.”

    There you are…. that’s from the man who grows carrots for Wrose and Sainsbugs etc. 

    Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.





  • OldSaltOldSalt Posts: 2
    Thanks for the info, I always rotate my crops but this years weather has made growing really bad, carrots all deformed like the one in the picture, beetroot weighing up to 7lb each, I chopped these all up last week and composted them, potatoes and tomatoes all got the blight etc and the Badgers bless them have eated all the sweet peppers off my 20 plants, I'm going to look into the "nematodes" you suggested, thats a great possibility.

  • DovefromaboveDovefromabove Posts: 88,147
    edited October 2021
    If it is the nematodes that are causing it there's nothing you can do I'm afraid ... there is no treatment available to the home gardener at the moment. ... the  carrot root knot nematoes must have built up in the soil ... so for now it's a case of growing your carrots elsewhere.  

    Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.





  • LynLyn Posts: 23,190
    Dovefromabove said:.

    Another suggestion is that it's been crossed with an octopus to produce a carrot for communal family dining for rabbits ... a bit like everyone having a chicken drumstick  ;)
    Puts a whole new take on genetically modified. 
    7lb beetroots,  couldn’t you have pulled them earlier,  I pick at golf ball size.

    Gardening on the wild, windy west side of Dartmoor. 

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