Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
Various carrot varieties flowering in their own isolation tents
A technique for temporally isolating cultivated carrots from wild carrots is to plant second-year
roots early (late winter) indoors in pots. Plant five or six roots in a 2.5-gallon (10-liter) pot and keep
the pots in a frost-free yet cool place. They can then be hardened off and planted out as just described.
Carrots handled thus will blossom several weeks before wild carrots, thus nullifying the risk of cross-
pollination.
In warmer climates, where carrots can stay in the ground all winter, it is still necessary to dig up car-
rots in autumn for selection, so that they can then be replanted together in one patch with appropriate
spacing for flowering and, if necessary, covered with straw to protect from frost. This method elimin-
ates the possibility of a second selection in the spring, however.
Since varieties are easily mixed up in the root cellar, be sure to label them for winter storage.
HARVEST
As with many umbellifers, the best seeds are typically found on the first umbels that develop
on the main stem. To take advantage of this, harvest these umbels first, and harvest seed from later or
smaller stems only if you have too little seed. Older seed propagation literature even recommends
pruning smaller and secondary growth, so the seeds from the main umbel are better nourished and be-
come bigger and healthier. Plantings with compact spacing yield a higher percentage of seed from the
main umbel because there is too little space for secondary growth.
Carrot seeds ripen over a long period of time, and seeds can be harvested throughout. As soon as the
first umbels become brown and dry, they can be harvested, ideally cut with a scissors on a warm, dry
day and left to dry further for two to three weeks. In colder zones, the ripening of seeds can be sped up
by uprooting the plants in early autumn and spreading them out to dry for a similar amount of time.
Thresh dry umbels in a cloth bag or with a coarse sieve. Seed can then be winnowed with finer sieves
and with the wind. The seed will be easier to handle if the “lashes” are removed in a cloth bag.
