Probably nothing, but you might try thinning them.

"All tops with no roots or small roots is a condition usually caused by planting too close or by not thinning plants. Excessive nitrogen fertilization can also contribute to extensive top growth at the expense of root growth."

I'm noticing the same thing in just one of my garden beds...my beets and carrots have large tops and small roots. My radishes did the same in that bed, so I suspect I put in too much nitrogen fertilizer. Knowing me, I probably forgot I had already fertilized it and so did it again! Another bed (same soil makeup) has larger roots on both the carrots and beets, even though it was planted later. Sometimes you can do too much of a good thing.

Granny

Here is a link that might be useful: Annie's Kitchen Garden

I am having the same problem particularly with the root crops I planted a bit on the early side. My SFG is new this year and I am using Mel's Mix made from store-bought compost of several varieties. My first (very early - March) planting of carrots, radishes and beets are all heavy on foliage, and slow to mature. I don't know if it's coincidence, something to do with the moisture or temperature levels, or perhaps some of the compost not being "finished?"

I did a second planting of radishes in late April and those turned out much better. Smaller tops and larger bulbs. My carrots are about 18" high with very little roots. Beets have 8-10" long leaves but the roots are smaller than golf balls.

Granny, I planted 16 per square as Mel's book recommends - but - I dropped two or three seeds in each hole and I did not thin them when they started growing. So that may be my main problem. I pulled up a couple of them and found that there are two to three carrots per planting spot. Evidently most of them germinated.

I think I'm going to let these stay in the ground another few weeks and see if they get bigger. Meanwhile, I'm going to try again in some nearby squares where I was growing lettuce, and I'll thin them properly this time.

How much nitrogen in fertilizer is too much? I believe the Miracle Grow I used is 10-10-10.

sethinalbany, I made my SFG mix last year from a couple of different kinds of store-bought compost, peat moss, and vermiculite. I had abundant peppers and okra, but squash and cucumbers didn't grow. I didn't try any root crops last year. I added garden lime to my mix last year and this year as it is supposed to help neutralize the soil and make nutrients more available to the plants.

I fertilize my carrots with a bit of top dresses compost and that's it. I don't think carrots need nitrogen not already presesnt in the ground.

Yes, that was me :-)

The carrots really look fine at 1" spacing, but the roots are still rather small. I've pulled a few for sampling, and they are well formed....the "Rainbow" not doing as well as the others. It germinated fine, but the two carrots I pulled to sample were both white, and they were rather tough and tasteless. The Chantenay and Imperator were much nicer. Nantes were the ones that had the poorest germination.

The carrot seed strips that I tried later got messed up when we were trying to put T-posts in the bed for my tomatoes. Some of them germinated, but about half were eaten by something. So much for carrots loving tomatoes! The lettuce on those seed tapes only gave me three plants, one on each 12" section. Again, they were disturbed by the posts being put in. It's worth trying the lettuce again though...if they hadn't been stepped on and buried under a bunch of soil, I think they would have done well. The three that survived are lovely.

Here is a link that might be useful: Annie's Kitchen Garden

My glued carrot seeds are sprouting now. I haven't counted them, but one square looks pretty well complete and the other is just getting going.

I planted more a couple days ago. This time, I did space them at 2" instead of 1".

Here is a link that might be useful: Tales of a Transplanted Gardener

I was wondering if you could do the newspaper glue thing with all seeds that doesn't need to be planted deep. The carrots I used were the half carrots (forgot the name) and thought they were perfect in my 6 inch soil. We will see! lol

So you can do this with lettuce and carrots. What other veggie can you do this with?

You can also do this with Spinach seed but I prefer to use square foot sheets of plywood that have been modified to punch holes in just the right sequence for planting various vegetable seeds. I have three square foot sheets with a handle on one side and small drawer knobs on the other side, arranged in just the right pattern for different seeds. One has 4 drawer knobs for lettuce and parsley, one has nine drawer knobs for spinach and bush beans, and one has 16 drawer knobs for carrots, onions, beets and radishes.

That way you can just punch all the holes at once and put a seed (or two) in each hole. This method makes seed planting very quick and easy for the square food garden.

Larry