Carrot flower

[journey11]

If you don't have any queen anne's lace anywhere nearby (don't know exactly how far--I'd say at least 500 ft. away), then you can save the seed and get carrots for next year. Hard to tell what you'll get though, being a mix, but it could be fun to find out!

 

[elf]

I usually leave some carrots in the ground to flower. The flowers are very attractive to the tiny wasps that kill aphids. If you notice a resemblance to the flower of Queen Anns lace it's no accident. Queen Anns lace is a type of wild carrot.

Hoodat, will the Queen Ann's Lace also attract those wasps?

 

[digitS']

If you don't have any queen anne's lace anywhere nearby (don't know exactly how far--I'd say at least 500 ft. away), then you can save the seed and get carrots for next year. Hard to tell what you'll get though, being a mix, but it could be fun to find out!

Wikipedia says that Queen Anne's Lace is a "variable biennial." That piqued my interest.

USDA just has it as a biennial but Purdue tells us that Daucus carota is, "annual (wild) or biennial (cultivated)."

Given the common nature of the wild carrot (Queen Anne's Lace), that is not good news for you seed savers. It is right across the North American continent as an invasive weed from Europe.

Steve

 

[patandchickens]

Yes, carrots are one of the harder things to save seed from in most places, because queen anne's lace is so ubiquitous and carrots can crosspollinate over fairly long distances. 1/4 mile is usually cited for home gardener use but apparently commercial growers need to isolate them by even more.

In principle you can bag and hand-pollinate plants but it is a nuisance if you want a lot of seed.

I am wondering whether maybe the odd, seed-saver-y type carrot lines may have actually had some wild carrot crossing-in over the years and maybe THAT is why you are getting the first year flowering.

Are the carrots that are forming flowers still good, eating-wise? (FWIW I would harvest them immediately, as flowering will take a good bit of energy out of the root and may also affect flavor as it does in many vegetables)

Pat

 

[hoodat]

I usually leave some carrots in the ground to flower. The flowers are very attractive to the tiny wasps that kill aphids. If you notice a resemblance to the flower of Queen Anns lace it's no accident. Queen Anns lace is a type of wild carrot.

Hoodat, will the Queen Ann's Lace also attract those wasps?

Queen Anns lace is a natural nectar source for both the parasitic wasps and syrphid flies, both of them aphid killers that do a far better job than lady bugs. They just do the job more or less invisibly. There is also a tiny parasitic wasp that preys on white fly that likes those flowers. They are so small that they sometimes have trouble reaching the nectar in flowers that bees love.

 

[elf]

Great! Got a bunch all around where I want to expand my gardens. I'll leave them, as I won't be saving carrot seeds, and they're pretty.

 

[PotterWatch]

Well, I pulled a few of mine that were flowering (there were more than I realized). They had fairly small carrots, not any larger around than the stem. I will be pulling any that flower simply because I don't really want to collect the seeds from these and I can use the space for other things. Hopefully I will get some decent carrots from what is left.

 

[digitS']

Wouldn't you know it ?

They are the white ones . . .

S'

 

[PotterWatch]

Yeah, I will be interested to see if the others that have started flowering are also white...

 

[lesa]

Well, I was reading this post with interest and last night I found one of my carrots was also going to flower!!! What the heck! I pulled it up and found it was a white carrot, as well. This is mighty interesting, mostly because I didn't knowingly plant any white carrots??? Well, I stuck it back in the ground, as an experiment...