Selection of carrots for seed?

[richardw]

Never tried indoors myself

[keen101 (Biolumo / Andrew B.)]

I'm a little annoyed. Last year i got some HUGE carrots as big as my hand around. I saved them so they would go to seed this year. But the deer have eaten the tops off them!! I'm pretty sure carrots do not come back from that. Shame. I guess this years attempt at carrot breeding / saving had failed again.

[ferdzy]

Aw, keen101 (Biolumo / Andrew B.). That is too bad.

I have started digging up my carrots for seed and replanting them. I had originally thought I could leave them in the ground since I always have a bunch that overwinter very nicely. But I have found that although the deer have not eaten them (yet, other than the tops) the big ones in particular do get eaten by something - voles? - or else water sits on their tops and they rot. In any case, my survival rate of really large carrots outdoors overwinter was pretty much zilch over 5 or 6 years, and I have given in.

This year they are sitting in the fridge and will get planted out. We will put them in a bed where we have overwintering spinach, which is covered with plastic now and will continue to be into the spring. I hope this will get them up and flowering before the Queen Anne's Lace, which will also be a bonus.

[richardw]

How much of the Queen Anne's Lace do you have ferdzy .

Sorry to read about your set back keen101 (Biolumo / Andrew B.) , bloody deer, thank goodness introduced deer dont go anywhere near human activity here.

[ferdzy]

richardw, after 10 years of pulling it there is not too much in bloom within, say, 50 meters of the main beds. However the minute we don't mow the "lawn" for a week the "lawn" is blooming. It's everywhere. Southern Ontario is completely blanketed in the stuff.

[richardw]

And i reckon it crosses if QAL is within a km of your garden, 21 years ago i lived in a town that truck loads growing just outside of town, my Benhorn carrot ended up growing lots of white roots for 5 years after moving away to where we are now, QAL free area, not had a white root for the last ten years. oh and ferdzy check ya PM's