The carrot ‘Long Red Surrey’ at Cruickshank Botanic Garden.

Thanks to Josh at Cruickshank Botanic Garden for providing a further update on progress with the Really Wild Veg growing trials. The carrots grown under glass have all now been transplanted. Wild carrot (Daucus carota), ‘Long Red Surrey’ and ‘Fly Away’ F1 can now be seen doing well in plot 6.

Most vegetable textbooks advise that carrots should not be transplanted and are best sown directly into the ground. It will be interesting to see if transplantation has affected the development of the carrots when they are harvested. The carrots have been intercropped with the radish variety ‘Dragon’ F1, sown on 19/6/2014.

Kale ‘Red Russian’ showing signs of yellowing of older leaves at Cruickshank Botanic Garden.

The wild cabbage (Brassica oleracea) that was affected by pigeon damage earlier in the year has started to develop new leaves and is recovering slowly. The remaining wild cabbage under glass has been transferred outside. Watering has been needed due to some recent hot weather and some of the older leaves on the kale have been yellowing and falling.

Plots 3 and 4 have not been weeded and the intention is to see if crop wild relatives perform better than domesticated crops when in competition from weeds. Josh’s next task is to identify what weeds have germinated in these plots.

The only important news to report from Edinburgh is that just prior to my holiday our carrot trial suffered a major setback. On Thursday 17th July the kitchen staff in the restaurant here at the Botanics harvested all of our carrots! There was a sign up explaining the trial, but unfortunately it went unnoticed. Apparently they made a fine carrot cake and the chef was very pleased with the quality of the crop.

What this does mean is that the only results for the carrot trial can now come from the other three gardens so I hope that your carrots are looking good!