Queen Anne and her ***** lace! (crossed carrots)

[Vanisle_BC]

I started to harvest some carrots - looking very crowded - and discovered at least half of them were Queen Anne Lace. Both plants were hopelessly intermingled. I think I must have got a batch of very impure seed. If my records are right (not always the case) they came from my favourite supplier - very disappointing. I won't say the name in case I'm wrong.

I stopped saving carrot seed long ago because there's a lot of QAL around here and I believe they cross readily. Strangely at the time all my saved seed had grown out pure.

[rainbowgardener]

Yes, I had that one year. I planted carrot seed and got mostly QAL....

[xtron]

if I remember correctly, carrots are developed from QAL, so even tho the parents of your seeds were carrots, the seeds might have produced "throw backs" , and you got QAL. that's why carrots is one thing I do not save seeds from....uuhhh...actually, I gave up on growing carrots. my soil is not good for them. every time I tried, they came out short, bent, and multi forked. just not worth the effort, especially when I can buy them as cheaply as I can($0.50/lb).

[Vanisle_BC]

Like you xtron, I've had my share of short, bent & multi-forked roots; but when I manage to give them deep loose soil I get nice carrots that make the grocery store specimens seem tasteless. If you wanted, it might be possible for you to do that in containers/tubs of carefully selected or conditioned soil?

It's an interesting point you make about whether it's worth the effort (& space) to raise things that are cheap in the stores. I feel that way about corn. I'm ambivalent about potatoes, but will never again bother with chickpeas - tangled rambling plants with only one pea in every pod. To each his (her!) own I guess. Wonder which crops other readers would rather buy than grow.

I don't think it's normal to get throwback wild carrots with seed from reputable growers. Even the couple of times I saved my own seed I never had the problem, although I guess I was just lucky they hadn't crossed with wild plants.

[xtron]

saving money is a side benefit for me. I started growing my own because of all the food recalls that were being issued a few years ago. if I grow it myself, I don't have to wonder if jose washed his hands after going to the bathroom before he picked the veggies I am buying.
I don't have to wonder what farmer john sprayed to control what bug, or weed, or to make it bigger.
if I grow it, I know what has been put in it, on it, and how it has been handled and processed.
but most importantly, I just plain love gardening.
is it worth it??
I can think of lots of worse ways to spend my time, so HELL YEA it's worth it.

[jal_ut]

In my soil the short fat carrots are best. Royal Chantenay is a good one.

Since the seeds are so small it is easy to plant them too closely. If you want a good carrot you gotta give the plant some room. So be careful when planting to not get them too close together. Plant early Spring.

[Vanisle_BC]

In my soil the short fat carrots are best. Royal Chantenay is a good one.

A good one, yes. Mostly I grow Autumn King which is supposed to be quite hardy although I haven't seriously compared them from that standpoint.

[Vanisle_BC]

So now I'm thinking of growing my own carrot seed. I did it successfully once before. I didn't know then that Queen Anne Lace would cross with carrot - so it didn't! Ignorance is bliss.

There's lots of QAL here so isolation by distance is out of the question. If I read things right, bagging a flowering plant - or, better, 2 together - should get me viable seed?

On another thought, would it be possible to arrange for the carrot to be flowering when QAL is not? (IF there ever is such a time!)

[jal_ut]

Saving seeds can be work, and problem is they are likely to be hybridized so that if you plant them next year, you won't get what you had this year. Yes, you will get something, but who knows what? I find it best to buy fresh seed from the garden store each season.