Saving Carrot Seeds? Here's What You Must Know First

Crisp, sweet, and healthy, carrots are an excellent staple for your home kitchen garden. Once you feel comfortable growing them, the next exciting venture is to save seeds from your veggies. There are so many amazing seeds you should be harvesting from your garden and replanting, but carrots aren't as straightforward. There are a few things you should know before you start collecting carrot seeds.

An easy mistake to make is expecting to harvest seeds the same year that you plant them. Carrots are biennials, meaning their lifecycle spans about two years. Because they still need a root after the winter to produce flowers and seeds, you will have to choose whether you want carrots or carrot seeds when you're harvesting. It's also important to plant a variety that will produce seeds that are true to the parent plant. Instead of growing hybrids, try growing seeds that are labeled as open-pollinated or heirloom. Open-pollinated plants produce more reliable seeds, even if they cross-pollinate with neighboring plants. Heirloom varieties are always open-pollinated, and they are often older. Many even have cultural significance.

As you consider saving seeds, keep in mind the carrot family is big, and not everyone is friendly. The Apiaceae family includes carrots, wild carrots, and parsley to name just a few. It also includes weeds like Queen Ann's lace and the very deadly poison hemlock. So make sure you are only harvesting seeds from a carrot that you planted. 

The simple carrot growing hack you need to ensure a healthy harvest can help you on your seed-saving venture by performing step one: grow carrots. A solid crop of healthy carrots will produce more flowers which have the potential to yield more seeds. However, it's crucial to remember that not even the best way to start seeds indoors will help you when it comes to carrots. They need to be directly sown where they will live for the next two seasons.

Once you have carrots going strong, the next necessary step is dormancy. Before they will go to seed, carrots need a period of 10 weeks below 59 degrees Fahrenheit. To get them through the winter, you can either leave them in the ground or dig them up. If you do decide to pull them out of the ground, you can store them at 39 degrees Fahrenheit with layers of sand between them before replanting them in the spring. This might be the best way to get some harvest and some seeds since you can weed out the wimpier plants. Either way, the foliage can be cut back to about 2 inches. Once the flowers give way to seeds, let them dry on the stem or collect them to dry indoors. Just don't let them pop open before you collect them!