My first self-directed grex creation project.
I started with carrots after reading Joseph’s book last year, and collected seeds from a few colorful heirloom/OP varieties that I had interest in and added them to some old Danvers seed I had from years ago. It was a little late in my season by the time I got around to planting (late June/July, heading right into our summer drought), so most of them didn’t have time to fully mature before selection/overwintering. In retrospect I would have preferred to grow out the varieties in individual rows just for this first season so I would know what was growing where and could do some thinning without worrying about culling out varieties that had lower germination rates—a learning experience. Regardless, I planted out a few of the best roots from each variety this spring and they’re leafing out nicely and preparing to bolt. I moved them from the food production beds I grew them in last summer to an ornamental bed with other flowers and fully intermixed the varieties for maximum crossing.
Goal for this first cycle was just to get some of each variety to maturity and increase seed while encouraging crossing. I also collected a few more varieties from seed swaps and am growing out a second batch of carrots with those plus the remainder of my original seed mix. As far as I know, there shouldn’t be any CMS in any of these lines. My intent was just to collect seed this first year and begin mass direct seeding next year, but if I get enough seed and there’s interest, I’ll be happy to contribute to the 2026 GTS mix, too.
Varieties included in the initial grow out:
Uzbek golden (Baker Creek)
Lila Lu sang (Baker Creek)
Longue rouge sang (Deep Harvest Farm)
Danvers (very old SSE seed)
Gniff (Baker Creek)
Kyoto red (Baker Creek)
Black nebula (Strictly Medicinal Seeds) - I only got one carrot to germinate from the pack and it died after planting out again in the spring, so I decided to give it another shot with seed from a different source.
Additional seed added for 2025 (direct seeded rows are just germinating now):
Black nebula (Baker Creek)
WI-OSC Purple Carrot (EFN)
“Giant of Comte” - I got this from a local seed swap but was not able to talk with the grower who collected it. I can’t find anything online about the variety and am wondering if it might be mislabeled Giant of Colmar. Regardless, I was excited to find locally saved seed and am growing it in a separate row so I can observe it carefully before including in a seed grow out.