Grow root crops in containers for easy, troub/e-free harvests.
Time to sow: spring-early summer
Producing long, straight carrots and blemish-free beetroots can be tricky in open ground. Both are favourites with slugs at the early stages of growth, and carrots can produce forked roots in stony soil. Growing them in large containers overcomes these problems, as the young plants are well away from the attentions of slugs and a fine, freedraining compost should give you slender, fork-free carrots. Provided you water the plants well in the summer, you can also grow them closer together in the perfect conditions of a pot than you would in the soil, so even a small container can be surprisingly abundant. Good varieties to grow together include beetroot ’Detroit 2 Little Ball’, which is a boltresistant mini beet; carrot ’Sugarsnax’, which is sweet and tasty.
TIP Get early crops by sowing a large pot of roots indoors in late winter to harvest as baby veg a few weeks later.
references: BBC 2011 gardeners book
image: http://balconygardenweb.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/Beets-in-pots-2.jpg