Volunteer carrots

This year trying to plant carrots have been a challenge. First, I made several "mats" using Granny's tutorial and planted it out. It worked - somewhat. Maybe because I put them out too early they were very slow germinating. Later in May I noticed something odd all over my garden beds - volunteer carrots sprouting where they don't belong. Very odd. I don't remember planting any in extra beds, certainly not in with my greens or in tomato bed. Then it dawned on me - last year I left several overwintered carrots go to bloom to get seeds. Well, I gathered them when they were dry and carried the rest to the back of the garden and just tossed them over the fence. So my entire path where I walked must have been "seeded" by left over on stalks. Oy vey. I don't even know what I have growing anymore. I guess I'll find out if they grow big enough to pick. One of them was Purple Dragon and another was Nantes. You can see two pictures - one is volunteer spot, and second "clean" is the one actually planted by me.
 
Here's a quick video of my 'volunteer' behind the fence. Maybe in future I should just leave it to Mother Nature to do the seeding job.

4 comments:

  1. I love volunteers. This year my volunteer lettuce helped save me when the cutworms destroyed a lot of my seedlings. I had some coming up in the paths and just use those as my transplants. Of course carrots are harder since you can't move them.

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    1. I love volunteers too as they usually better than what I plant. This year it's dill, carrots and cilantro.

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  2. Isn't it funny - you try to sow some seeds using such care & fuss over them like crazy - then they don't come up or do so grudgingly. Then you toss the same seeds over a fence & POW - Instant germination! I guess mother nature really does know best!

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    1. I think all my volunteers have been doing better than anything I planted this year. Maybe I should just leave seeds to overwinter in the garden and self-seed from now on :)

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