How to Harvest Heirloom Carrot Seeds

Harvest and replant your heirloom carrots to collect their seed.

Growing heirloom carrots for seed is slightly more difficult than growing them for their root. Carrots will produce an edible root in just one year. But to produce flowers and seed, a carrot must grow for two years. The best way to carry your heirloom carrot plant into the next season when it will flower, you must dig it out of the ground and store it in a cool place. Then replant it next year. Within a few weeks, it will produce flowers followed by harvestable seed.

Things You'll Need

• Pruning shears
• Water
• Paper bag
• Polyethylene bag
• Wood shavings
• Refrigerator
• Spade
• Paper plate

Instructions

1. Harvest your carrot plants as usual in late fall at the end of the growing season.

2. Save the largest and healthiest carrot roots for storage and replanting. Eat the rest.

3. Rinse the carrots off with running water. Do not rub vigorously.

4. Trim the foliage back to 2 to 3 inches in height. Cut off the root hairs.

5. Lay the carrots out indoors in a dry spot until all of their surface moisture dissipates. Turn them at least once.

6. Fill a paper bag with wood shavings. Bury the carrot roots in the bag so that no root touches its neighbor. Close the paper bag.

7. Place the paper bag in a polyethylene bag.

8. Place the polyethylene bag in your refrigerator and store it there for the winter. Once moisture begins to accumulate on the inside of the polyethylene bag, poke two to three holes in it to allow it to breathe.

9. Plant the carrots back in the garden bed in spring at the same depth that they grew originally. Double the original space between individual carrot plants. They will get much larger in the period from planting to blooming.

10. Water the soil. Continue to water periodically, whenever the top inch or two of the soil dries out. Keep the soil moist but not soaking. New foliage will germinate in four to six weeks.

11. Prune the carrot flower seed head off at its base when it dries and turns brown in late summer.

12. Lay the seed head and flower stalk on a plate to dry for a few days until it becomes quite dry and brittle.

13. Pull open the seed head over the plate and shake out the carrot seed.

14. Plant the carrot seed.

References

• Millenium Ark: Collecting and Storing Seed From Your Garden
• United States Department of Agriculture: Carrot Seed Production
• Government of Saskatchewan: Carrot Production