Arthur Wellesley, the first Duke of Wellington of Waterloo fame would have been proud of me, and his sergeant majors, as I lay out three precise squares of Amsterdam forcing carrots to bring on under a cloche. And that cloche should also help to protect these early ones from any carrot flies that might come surging over the allotment hedge, swarming in their thousands like the cavalry under Michel Ney the first Duc d'Elchingen and the first prince of Moscow, the bravest of the brave, but also the stupidest of the stupidest as he sacrificed his cavalry on the British squares that hot, dusty and deadly afternoon. And so the carrot fly should be repelled by my plastic cloche as long as they're not riding big thundering horses, wearing a lot of gold braid and have wickedly sharp sabres, no cloche however plastic can stand up to that sort of treatment.
For the main crop I intend to build three cloche-like structures covered in that white meshy stuff to keep off the fly. Adding more belt to my braces, for a Christmas present I was given a packet of Flyaway carrot seed and I will use that for one row of carrots, while for the other row I would like to get some James Scarlet Intermediate to sow.
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