I use a number of different things for fertilizers: bone & blood meals, composted chicken manure (Black Hen), alfalfa pellets (rabbit food), cornmeal, milk, seaweed extract & of course as much compost as possible - both home made & store bought (cow manure compost @ HD)+ compost tea. Organics are about soil-building; I also mulch thickly w/ spoiled hay & have multitudes of earthworms. I also recently started using Espoma bagged organic fertilizer from HD & like the results so far. I have to admit I'm no carrot expert, tho I know young immature 1s can be flavourless. I've had little success w/ most root veggies here due to wireworms & nematodes, I believe. I'm trying beets in pots this season - fingers crossed. HTH Here is a link that might be useful: Carrots @ Floridata

salgal- I have to agree with you about Lapp Valley Farm in Pa. When we live in CT we went to Lancaster County twice a year to visit the Amish. We found that farm when we were riding around. The ice cream could not be beat. The older Amish man told us he could wrap the ice cream for us so we could bring it back to CT & it would not thaw & he was right. Hubby has a sweet tooth so we always came back with at least 8-10 gallons.

I have never heard of Blue Bell until now, but its not available in California, darn :-( Sure sounds good ! My hubby loves Ice Cream, but I never buy it for myself, I do enjoy a cone from McDonalds once in awhile though and if we had a speciality Ice Cream Place I would probably like it, like 31 flavors. A few months ago they started putting in a Cold Stone shop, got it half built and we got excited about it, and then they just stopped , left and put in a small subway :-(

I want some mandarin trees to simply eat the mandarins. I don't plan on squeezing or juicing. I'll just eat them right off the tree. But I want varieties you can't find in stores, and the varieties with the most flavor. After a bit more research, I think the Page Mandarin might be a good choice for me flavor wise. And maybe Lee as well. A Page is a hybrid of Mineola Tangelo and Clementine. Lee is a hybrid of Orlando Tangelo and Clementine. On the University of Florida of website, they say that Page should have a pollinizer such as Lee nearby, and Lee should have a pollinizer such as Page nearby. So that seems like a match made in heaven- Page and Lee together. Read the UF's recommendations here: https://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/ch067 and here: https://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/ch080 But I'm still looking for others. As of now I am thinking I should get Page, Lee, Kishu (if I can find one), Gold Nugget (if I can find one), and Ponkan. Maybe Owari Satsuma as well. And yes, I do like Mineola Tangelos of course. Are they known as Honeybelles? I've had some good honeybelles before. And actually, I would say I like all citrus. But I want the best of the best, most concentrated flavor varieties. If Mineola Tangelo is more powerfully flavored than Mandarins and Tangerines, then I will get one. But Mineola Tangelos are not too hard to find in stores here in Florida either, so I might pass on that.