This year’s spring-sown carrots are sizing up nicely and showing color variation in the shoulders & foliage. These are tempting me to harvest now out of curiosity, but I’d like to give them a full season of growth before evaluating them for seed saving. For now, I’m sticking to only harvesting plants that are clearly smaller than their neighbors in areas that need thinning or have some defect like this one that split.
This short + stout growth form seems prevalent in many of the roots I’ve culled so far, likely due to genetics from Gniff and/or Uzbek golden.
I’ve also recently sown one last bed with seed from last year’s secondary umbels. I’ll use that to select plants that are quick enough to size up before the fall harvest.