this forking can be caused by at least 2 things to my knowledge. 1 over fertile soil dig you dig lots of compost in before planting? And stony soil.

Carrots need to be grown in sandy soil with a very fine tilth anything else and they will fork. The guys who grow for the horticultural shows all grow in a mix of sand and very well sieved soil. If you have a clay or heavy soil then you really can't grow carrots.

We grow carrots in clay soil here, but we stick to short kinds like 'Thumbelina', 'Royal Chantenay', or 'Little Finger'. If we put in too much compost, however, we have been known to get one that looks like it belongs on the underside of a cow!

There you go... In the UK carrots are grown commercially on sandy, lean soil... which is a problem for us as it means we always have commercial carrots in the area as the unimproved soil around us is perfect for carrot growing. We may just have to give up on!

Hmm. Maybe pick three spots to grow carrots, and replace the soil with unimproved from your neighbor's--they may be glad for the exchange! Plant one patch with carrots, leave one patch fallow, and grow sand-loving annual wildflowers in the third patch. Rotate every year. Would that work, or are there other veggies not in the same family that like lean, sandy soil?

No it isn't our soil that is the problem Tugbrethil we just don't add compost to the area they will grow in but, because of the huge commercial plantings, the dreaded carrot root fly is very much in evidence.

There's got to be some economic way to avoid monoculture! Unfortunately, I can't think of one myself--every idea I've had results in a fair increase to growing costs when I crunch the numbers. I'm just too good at spending other peoples money!

The field at the end of our garden is down to barley every year. The amount of fertiliser, herbicides and pesticides that get sprayed on it is insane!

Gah! Every 20 years we go through this. Farmers forget good farming techniques, the soil and environment goes to heck, then suddenly everyone's touting "new methods", such as hedgerows, contour plowing, crop rotation, integrated pest management, etc., etc. What are they teaching in Ag. school nowadays, anyway? Or are all of the "farmers" getting MBA's instead? Oh well, sorry about the rant!

That's okay TugB... I want to shout and scream 'stop polluting our plant - I live on it!'