Collecting carrot seeds from my garden

Summer of 2015, I collected seeds from a parsley plant in my garden, enough for about 5 years of parsley.

At the end of 2015's summer garden, I left one carrot in the ground in my garden's carrot patch, to go to seed this summer. Carrots are biennials, meaning it takes 2 seasons for flowers to develop.

Over winter, the green top of this one carrot died back. In spring, it put on new growth. And I left it there, to flower. All summer long, this carrot's flowers have been developing seeds for me.

This past weekend, I clipped the most dried seed head. (When the seed head turns tan, and the seeds look dried, that's when it's time to gently cut the seed head from the plant.)

If you look at it up close, you can see there are hundreds of seeds on one seed head. And that one carrot produced 7 seed heads. Carrot seeds remain vigorous in their germination for about 3 years. Some carrot seeds will still germinate beyond that 3 year mark, but the percentage of viable seeds will decline.

I shook the seed head over an open paper bag. The remaining seeds will continue to dry, with the seed head, upside down and inside the paper bag, just sitting on my desk.

In a couple of weeks, I'll rub the remaining seeds off the seed head, and store this paper bag, inside my seed container, for planting next spring.


(If you live where weather is severe enough for carrots to rot in the ground over winter, here's an old-timer's tip for collecting carrot seeds. Dig up 5 or 6 of your best carrots, being very careful not to bruise the skins. Clip the green tops to 1-inch of the top of the carrot. Store in moistened sand in a cellar, until springtime planting. Replant the carrots, and allow to flower. Collect seeds, as per above.)

I choose a different vegetable or two each year to collect seeds from. It's easy. It's thrifty. And it fits my idea of fun.

Autumn decorations from Michael's vs Autumn decorations from Dollar Tree

On Saturday, I was out running multiple errands in the area with my daughters, and we all wanted to stop at Michael's. We each had our coupons (from mailers, as well as online rewards program emails), and we each had a couple of items we were interested in.

I've been longing to add decor to our front entry for autumn. One of my daughters hit it when she said, "this is your way of making up for summer coming to an end". That is a good part of why I like to decorate seasonally.

In Michael's, I could feel myself wanting to go wild with the spending. I need colored leaves, flower stems, faux squash, corn stalks, bales of hay. . .I need it all!

After much planning, and much mental mathematics, I selected these flower stems. they were on sale at 50% off, so I thought I was getting a great deal. Total spent -- $16.92

Driving on to our next errand, I realized that I should have checked Dollar Tree first. Kicking myself for not doing that only left me with a sore shin while trying to drive. I vowed to compare the floral stems at Dollar Tree, when we stopped in later that afternoon.

And these are the flowers that I found at Dollar Tree. Total spent -- $7.66

Okay, so they're not exact replicas of what Michael's carries, but they give the same autumnal "feel" to my entry decor. And as they'll be outside in the elements, I'm glad to not spend so much money on decorative pieces.  When my front entry decor transitions over to Christmas decor, I'll bring these inside to store until next year.

The differences between Michael's floral stems and Dollar Tree's are not significant to my needs. the Michael's stems are longer, and fuller. The length of stems didn't matter for my use. And the fullness was made up by purchasing an extra stem in each flower-type.

My plan was to put the mums into a pot (still to do), and the sunflowers into a basket. While at St Vincent de Paul's on Sunday, I found this great grapevine cornucopia for 99 cents. Doesn't get much better than that -- a great autumn piece, and only 99 cents!

Does anybody here receive the Victoria online newsletter? If you do, then last week you may have seen this photo:

It's gorgeous, isn't it? This is the cover for October's issue (only it's reversed on the magazine cover) While my front entry won't look nearly as lush and full, this is the feel I'm aiming for. In the next couple of weeks, I'll be adding decor details to my entry, but on a budget. I'll share as I go.

I'll swing by Michael's while out this morning, and return those original floral stems. I saved myself $9.26.