Seeds
Orchid Lady
Posts: 5,800
Whilst preparing dinner today and peeling / chopping parsnips and carrots, I started wondering where the seeds come from to grow them as there are none inside like there is with squash, cucumber and most fruits etc. I thought maybe it was just root veg that have this 'non-seed issue' but then I chopped the cabbage and of course, no seeds there either and none with other brassicas.
So, for those vegetables (and possible some fruit but I can't think of any) that don't have seeds inside or go to seed (like lettuce?), where do the seeds come from to reproduce more vegetables?? If left long enough, do they go to seeds naturally and that is where they come from? Although I dug up some small carrots and parsnips left from last year a few weeks ago and no seeds there either.
I hope I don't appear too thick but I don't know and feel that really I should 
Posts
Carrots are biennials. They grow a long (or short) root in the first year and if you leave them unharvested they go to seed the next year. They're umbellifers, look a bit like cow parsley on a smaller scale.
If you'd left last year's in the ground they would have done that any time now
https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=carrot+flowers&rlz=2C1CHFX_enGB0538GB0538&es_sm=93&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=SQBUU6r_FI7fOLv5gdgL&ved=0CAgQ_AUoAQ&biw=748&bih=482&dpr=0.9
You had to have the whole link, love those carved carrot 'flowers'
In the sticks near Peterborough
Wow, how interesting, I honestly never knew that....does that make me really thick
Thank you nut 
I presume then parsnips must be the same and Beetroot, possibly all root veg?
What about brassicas?
parsnips yes, and beetroot but they're not umbellifers. They're Chenopodiacee. They will go to seed if you're unlucky (bolting)
brassicas, some are already flowers like cauliflower and broccoli. Cabbages will go to flower and seed in the first year
http://www.arkive.org/lundy-cabbage/coincya-wrightii/image-A3911.html
That's Lunday cabbage but they look like that. I tried for cabbage flowers but got those awful things that go in supermarket flower bunches
In the sticks near Peterborough
It's very interesting, I ust hope I'm not the only one to not have known this, maybe I should have paid more attention at school
Nah, maybe they should have made it more interesting for you at school
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
Too right Dove
In the sticks near Peterborough
I could never see what was happening Philippa, too many girls around one frog
Not sure if we did anything on plants, nothing that grabbed my attention anyway.
Same generation? I'm 69 this year
In the sticks near Peterborough
We dissected a bullseye which I didn't like at all. I remember learning a bit about flowers and stamen's and things about birds and bees, literally!!! But nothing about other plants and certainly not fruit or veg. I'm slightly younger than nut
Wouldn't you rather have this Mike? Just for you ............... cheers!
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
Don't look at me - I'm going backwards - I'm 26 - and if you believe that .............
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.