We have successfully started beetroot off in modules - trays divided into cells - and then planted them out. They don't seem to mind being transplanted as much as carrots and parsnips do.

No - only Spring onions can do that ! Some onions can walk too !

With apologies for my warped sense of humour, hope you don't mind as you already have lots of helpful advice !

You never need to apologise for humour, neither for trying to spread a little or for seeing it in others. Sometimes you have to help people with their sense of humour, then they get embarrassed and even offended.

Let the humour out 'Babe'. I can take it.

Back to the jumping carrot then, two more carrots have jumped out. Cant be my dog because like a rabbit she loves carrot. I was up at six-thirty this morning and nothing had jumped. Just spent the day at the beach, got back and there they were laying on the stony soil of my first raised bed. Two again, not one or three.

One of the driving forces for me getting an allotment was our first springer Taz would constantly help herself to anything she fancied in the vege patch and she was particularly fond of carrots. Our 2nd springer Zoe would perch on the edge of the large pot of runner beans leaning in on the canes and feast on them so there were never any lower than her height!

I am so glad we have the allotment now we have the Vizler though as she happily eats just about any vege including tomatoes, cucumbers, lettuce radish, asparagus - in fact the only thing she won't wolf down ( excuse the pun) is the onion family! (She likes digging them up though)

Westi

my shitzu bitch pinched a chilli once then ran about trying to clean her mouth. She was partial to grapes and tomatoes too, sadly she is no longer with me, I wish she was still here to get up to mischief !

oooooh-no, don't, when I make my little spaniel do stuff she doesn't want to do I have to remind myself how i'll feel when she's gone.

here we go, this should start a wave of loved-pet photos. Caption is, I love carrots.

Sorry, this photo is still to big so I deleted.

CAPTION - Sure scared the s..t out of me!

Lovely dog Ricard, spaniels always look so soulful.

growing carrots in stony ground can't be easy, I would imagine that makes it harder to grow them straight. Might a cat scratching be the culprit?

I never thought about cats, yes we have a cat that belongs to the neighbour and whilst I haven't yet seen it up to mischief it is a possibility.

Thank you.

Be very hard to begrudge a few carrots to a face like that Bless her little cotton socks.

Cats definitely another potential suspect. Might be you've unwittingly planted them in what the neighbourhood cats regard as their outdoor litter tray

VPM
x

I didn't want a dog any more than I wanted to grow vegetables, I was 'encouraged'.

I doubt I created raised beds into cat territory, most of our land is grass, instated-wildflower and indigenous stuff growing on hard-packed stony-clay-like soil. Maybe the new raised beds have become a respite for the local moggies who are mostly feral. Most of the farms have cat-communities but the cats are-not pets. Custodians of the small wildlife and birds, yes, and a few moles.

Just checked the carrot planting and again, two carrots. This time they haven't been pulled, rather they've been exposed.

Fantastic, I found out how to reduce my photos in pixel but they are still to wide. Sorry. Get the dog back then.

Just a thought - do blackbirds dig around your carrots?

I haven't caught any and though we do have blackbirds we don't have as many as people I visit in villages and towns, even the cities. We do have a regular hunting pair of buzzards which is possibly why you don't see many other smaller birds hanging round like when I lived in suburbia. Every morning when I get up I check for birds messing with my crop but I've seen any.

I don't think it's the dog now, she loves carrot but they don't get absorbed. I can tell if she's eaten carrot when I clear her evacuations from the grass.

Birds after worms is good bet.

If it's a bird it's probably a goldfinch. They go for carats