Carrots and Hot Weather

General Gardening
#1

So I planted rather indiscriminately leftover carrot seeds from some old seed packages last fall.

They grew slowly as they do in my experience… I had a huge weeding task in my 13 foot by 25 foot in ground veggie area where the carrots were… along with some melon vines I had let it go. (note: I was absolutely amazed at the a mount of insects I encountered while weeding. It’s a loose soil area as I had added soil on top of grade. Literally over 100 little critters scurrying around per square foot. Luckily nothing bit me).

I pulled them all up and threw them out.

So my question: when do carrots bloom and go to seed? These carrot plants had been in the ground for 10 months and they still hadn’t bloomed…not a single one.

Since I didn’t thin them they were all too small to bother cleaning for consumption.

I also don’t know if they would be worth eating at this stage. Do they go off taste wise with the heat? I mean I’ve had highs 80-100 for most of 5 months now…

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#2

Carrots are biennial- they will go to seed next year.

I am not sure how hot weather impacts carrots, but if I leave mine in the ground too long then I will get ants that make a home inside the carrots.

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#3

Mine already flowered earlier, like 2-3 months ago.

#4

Thanks… I saw no damage on mine. A bit of a waste to throw away a hundred or so carrots, but I needed to clear the area…

Didn’t know about the biannual thing. Carrots are definitely a winter crop here and this is by far the longest I’ve left any in the ground.

It’s so damn time consuming to seed more discretely.

#5

Do you have a compost pile, that’s where I threw mine in.

#6

Compost pile = more weeds I can’t mow.

:stuck_out_tongue:

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#7

Carrots are biennial but they don’t really know it’s year two unless they feel some winter chill. If you are in a warm area, that switch doesn’t get flipped. Even small carrots do tend to get bitter or tough with age and/or heat.
I would suggest looking into pelleted seed - each seed has a clay coating that makes them about the size of a big radish seed. Plant seeds 1 inch apart and you can grow a lot of carrots in small, well-cared-for area. Hercules is my favorite hot-weather variety.

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#8

Great info.

Thanks

Looking up Hercules carrots now…

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#9

@Zumo
I’ve got some Hercules in a cart for purchase. I can start planting later this month and I am promising myself to sequentially plant to spread out harvest…though the great thing about carrots is you can pull them whenever you want.

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#10

Sounds like you are on track, I think carrots are one of those vegetables worth figuring out even if they’re a bit tricky sometimes. Succession planting is a great tactic. Good luck!

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#11

Thinning of over-seeded carrots is a must for full-sized carrots to develop (full-sized both above and below ground).

#12

I was just lazy. I was also seeing how they would grow that way. The drawback is it’s too much trouble to clean a small carrot to eat and these were not smooth carrots so too much got taken away from using a peeler.

Yup its just like a pond and fish… You can have a small amount of very large fish or a large amount of very small ones…

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