What is the best way to stop carrot root fly, I had it terrible last year.?
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Once you have the dreaded carrot fly there is NO CURE.
There are a number of preventative measures as follow, but I emphasise they are not fool proof. Forget all the expensive powders lotions and what have you, I spent a fortune on my allotment, waste of money, I now grow them in large pots at home, successfully. First of all make your bed away from tall plants. Sow thinly and destroy thinnings, cover seedlings with that fine netting you can buy from garden centres, lift early no later than August and do not sow your maincrop till June. I live in a carrot fly area, and it appears you do. Try growing some in a pot in the garden, you've got a better chance. sorry I can't be more helpful, but that's nature.
Carrot root fly
If you grow carrots you will at some stage have problems with carrot root fly. The flies home in on the smell of the carrots and lay there eggs in the young carrots. To prevent this sow as thinly as possible by mixing the seed with silver sand before sowing in the seed drills. This avoids having to thin the carrots out, normally as they are thinned out the breaking of the stems creates a lot of scent attracting the carrot flies.
As the carrots grow earth them up to cover the carrot root top as you do potatoes and finally use Enviromesh Insect Protection Netting as this helps stop the carrot flies reaching the carrots.
Apparantly the best way to stop carrot root fly is plant onions alongside. My daughter grows carrot in troughs, always plants a row of onions in between and we have never had carrot root fly.
Shave your pubes off and keep your tackle well moisturised!
There are ways of tricking them, so that they don't come swarming. Having lived most of my life on a farm, where we grow tons of carrots, as well as growing them privately, these are true pests, who seek out the smell of carrots and home in.
In smaller growing areas, it's advantageous to plant Rosemary (Rosmarinus Officinalis) as the strong aromatic oils from these deter them.
Marigolds, Garlic and Onions also offer similar protection due, probably to their leaves exuding strong scents that either mask or deter them. There's still time to plant these, and Marigolds and Onions are often sold as small plants, and are mostly still on sale right now. If not, some garlic plants are easy to obtain, and will spread very well over time.
I find that when you thin-out your carrot seedlings, to give them enough space to grow well, is the typical time when these things will be attracted. Avoiding this, by sowing less thickly, reducing the need to thin-out,should help you.
As the flies are low fliers, if you erect a small screen of polythene around the bed, ensuring the bottom of the sheet is buried below ground level. will also deter many of them. Typically a screen of around 2.5 to 3 feet high should be enough.
You can also cover the actual crop with garden fleece, which allows air, light and moisture through. This will not allow the flies in - bury the bottom in the soil again, to prevent really low fliers.
Also, if you can grow them on a different patch to last year, this should also help, in case there are any spring grubs around, ready to eat into the new carrots.
Hope these fairly simple low cost, low effort steps help.
Good luck! Rob
The carrot root fly is a low/poor flying insect which if you plant your carrots in a raised bed or with a screen around the bed the fly will not attack the crop. Another method is to plant the seeds in July after the carrot fly attacks have happened this will ensure a good crop, this is od course dependent on where you live as it has to be warm enough for the carrots to mature if you plant this late. The onion planting to mask the smell certainly helps as does thinly sown seeds
I use row cover. It is put over the bed at time of seeding and not removed except to weed or ferilized until it is time to harvest. This has worked very well for me for the past 14 years of growing carrots for market.
Without row cover around 75% of my carrots will be hit by maggot flies. With row cover around 85% to 90% will be clean (as long as the row covers don't come off for more than 6 hours.)
You can also try sowing your carrots a week or so earlier, thus defeating the carrot fly. Making a brew of tomato leaves to water on the carrots also confuses the carrot fly´s sense of smell.
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