How Do You Get A Carrot Seed?

Question: I want to try and save carrot seeds this season? How do you get a carrot seed? -Tim J.

Answer: If you allow a carrot plant to continue growing after the first year, leaving the carrot in the soil, it will come back the second year with a new mission. Instead of developing another root vegetable tuber, the carrot plant will focus its efforts on flowering and then producing seeds. Also, if you plant a carrot top in the ground to grow a carrot plant and allow the plant to fully mature it will flower, and eventually begin producing seeds. The seeds can then be saved for next growing season and planted to possibly grow new carrot plants.

To save your carrot seeds, use a pair of gardening shears or scissors to cut the flower stalks from your carrot plants after the flowers have fully faded and place the stalks into a brown paper bag. Store the bag in a dry location for two or three weeks until the drying process has completed. Once the stalks have dried, shake the bag to loosen the seeds from the stalks. Remove all the stalks and any additional plant debris from the bag so that all you have left are seeds. Either keep the seeds in the brown paper bag, or store them in a glass jar, and label them with the seed name and date, storing them in the refrigerator. Unfortunately, unless you know that your plant was not cross-pollinated and was grown from an heirloom carrot plant, you are likely to have saved hybrid seeds. Hybrid seeds tend to have very unpredictable results, so it is usually recommended that carrot seeds be purchased from a reliable dealer rather than self-cultivated and stored.