I'm hoping to start seed saving, now that I'm getting better at actually growing things from seeds! I was wondering how the more experienced go about saving biennials like carrot and onion? I was considering making one or two small 'seed beds' to grow these in. Most of my garden is in raised beds, and I want to rotate them yearly. I'm also toying with the idea of growing my own onion sets, as I am currently having good success with them. I was thinking maybe 2 5x2 beds like I currently have my potatoes in, so that they can grow undisturbed.
I save carrot seeds simply by leaving in a few carrots in the garden to 'winter over'. They grow in the next spring and flower > after the flower is finished/dried, the seeds are there for the harvesting. I try to cut the whole seed flower into a brown paper bag, then shake the seeds off and dispose of the flower part in the compost.
How long do they usually take into the second year? The onions I have seeding this year were totally by chance, I thought they had died off last year but the bulbs came back and I was able to move them out, but while they have been in flower for a while now I don't see mature seeds yet. I'm only worried about them taking up too much space and preventing turning over and rotation, which is why I thought keeping two little seed-saving beds might work better.
