Aussie gardener's warning about popular item sold at Bunnings: 'Should be illegal'

A gardener on a mission to make growing backyard vegetable gardens more accessible to all Aussies has called out Bunnings for selling a popular product that he says has a "high rate of failure".

The Victorian man Ryan, behind YouTube channel Culinary Garden, said buying carrots in seedling form will result in stunted growth. He adds that the only reason big nurseries like Bunnings even stock them is simply because "they sell".

He told Yahoo News Australia that while some seedlings can survive, the root vegetable regularly fails and has a "really high rate of stunted growth, growing all zig-zagged."

"They fail because carrots are a taproot that grow downwards and fatten out," he explained. "But if you damage that taproot when transplanting you end up with a non-straight carrot, or a dead one, or one that only grows about an inch long."

Selling popular product 'should be illegal'

In the original video posted to social media, Ryan claimed that it "should be illegal" for carrots to be sold in seedling form — telling followers "don't buy them".

After sharing his advice, the gardening enthusiast said followers "roasted" him, not believing that a nursery would stock carrot seedlings because it's "well-known" that they're tricky to transplant into the ground.

"The next day Bunnings posted a video of them using them," he pointed out.

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How to grow carrots at home

Ryan says that buying carrots in seedling form would only save a gardener "about two weeks". Instead, he suggests simply starting them from seed.

"Carrot seeds are one of the easiest seeds to start, because you direct sow them and they germinate really easily," Ryan said in his most recent video.

"You just need to direct sow them straight into some decent potting mix, cover them a little bit, water them in, and they'll start popping up."

Other vegetables Ryan suggests Aussies avoid buying from seedlings include lettuce, which is easy to grow from seed, as well as garlic, peas and beans.

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