Seed Saving: How to Save Carrot Seeds

Wondering how to save carrot seeds to plant next year? With some basic information it is easy to do!

How to save carrot seeds is part 6 of our Seed Saving Series; you can find the original article here:

How to Save Carrot Seeds

Carrots are a biennial, meaning they live two seasons. The first year they grow a root; the second year they send up a stalk and produce seeds.

To save carrot seeds, you can either leave some carrots in the ground over winter, or dig them and store them in a fridge or root cellar, replanting them in the spring. You should not save seeds from carrots that go to seed the first year they are planted.

Carrots can be overwintered in the garden in zone 6 and above. In zone 5 they can usually be overwintered if covered with a thick layer of mulch. I’m in zone 5 and prefer to store a few carrots in the fridge over winter to replant in spring. A third option is store in damp soil or sand in a cool place such as a root cellar, basement or crawl space, or above freezing garage.

What Kinds of Carrots Can You Save Seed From?

Many carrots are labeled “F1”. meaning they are a hybrid. Although you can save seeds from a hybrid, the resulting plants will not breed true: most of the resulting carrots will look different from the variety you started with.

To get carrots that are more consistent with the variety you started with, only save seed from OP (open pollinated) carrots, which should breed true. Varieties marked “heirloom” are normally open pollinated and are great for seed saving!

Minimum Number of Plants

Always try to save seed from at least 10-20 carrots. This will ensure good pollination and seed set, as well as keeping the variety from getting inbred.

Saving Carrot Seeds: Cross Pollination

Carrots are pollinated by bees. If two different varieties are flowering within 1/2 mile of each other, they can cross. Carrots will also cross with Queen Anne’s Lace (Wild Carrot). This is probably the number one thing you need to know about how to save carrot seeds!

If two kinds of carrots are grown closer together, or you have Queen Anne’s Lace in your area, the plants will need to be grown inside a tight mesh cage to keep out insects. This method is mainly used by commercial carrot seed producers, and isn’t the most practical for home gardeners.

Plants grown in a cage will need to be hand pollinated by brushing a large paintbrush back and forth over each flower head on a daily basis. They can also have the caging removed on alternate days to allow the bees to visit and pollinate a different variety each day.

Carrot seeds last many years, so if you choose, you can grow enough seeds for several years at once and save the trouble of harvesting seeds every single year.

Personally, I only allow one variety of carrots to go to seed in my garden each year to simplify saving carrot seeds.

How to Harvest Carrot Seeds

Carrots are biennials, meaning they live two years. In the spring of their second year, carrots will bolt, or send up stalks with large, white flowers.

Carrot seeds can be harvested when they are starting to dry out on the plant

Carrot seeds are fuzzy when they are harvested and tend to end up with a lot of foreign objects mixed in with the seeds. To clean them you may want to shake them over different sized seed screens or mesh strainers.

For all you carrot connoisseurs, the carrots shown in these photos are all open pollinated varieties. The lightest orange carrots are Danvers, the dark orange are Kyoto Red, the medium purples are Cosmic Purple, and the very dark purple is a Black Nebula.

You can find more of our articles on Seed Saving here.

AND…we now have a special ONLINE COURSE just for BEGINNING SEED SAVERS! You can read about the course, Simple Seed Saving, here!