How does a plant like carrots and lettuce grow when they don't make seeds?

Question

I understand an orange or apple or anything with seeds, you replant the seeds, but what about stuff with no seeds, where do the farmers get the seeds to keep growing our food.

Answer 1

Lots of vegetables will 'bolt' if you let them go through their full lifecycle. Carrot greens will continue growing and send out tall fronds which will form flowers and if fertilized by the wind or insects, sees. Same with lettuce, cabbage, broccoli and others- they will grow special tall shoots which send out small clusters of flowers, which will form seedheads.

Answer 2

You've had some good answers - basically, we harvest most plants before they are mature enough to form flowers and seeds. But no one has mentioned biennials. Carrots are an example of biennials.

Some plants are annuals: their life cycle is a year (or less). They bloom continuously but at the end of the season their life is over.
Some plants are perennials: they have a limited bloom period so they can store the energy to come back year after year.
And some plants are biennials: theirs is a two-year life cycle. They grow the first year, winter over, come to life the second year, bloom, set seed, and die. Carrots are among these. So is parsley. And hollyhocks, and foxgloves, and quite a few other members of the plant family!

Answer 3

As others have pointed out your example do produce seed if left alone long enough. But I thought you might like to know there is one plant that has almost entirely lost it's ability to make seed (and there is only one). Garlic is the answer! It was cultivated by Egyptians for so long that although you can technically get seeds from the garlic flowers they are 'dead' and less than 1 seed per million will germinate! When you see references to garlic seed what the supplier is actually meaning is individual garlic cloves that are meant for planting (most store bought garlic has been treated to prevent it from sprouting).

One other plant gets close to depending entirely on humans for propagation and that's geraniums.

Answer 4

All plants make seeds. In the case of lettuce and carrots if you want to gather the seeds, you have to wait until the plants are "overgrown." Just let them run their own lifecycle and they produce seeds. Obviously, we pick them for food before this happens. But there are clearly plenty of people letting their plants go to seed so that we can re-plant each year.

Answer 5

Child, they make plenty of seeds. Visit the plant department at a Wal-mart or Ace Hardware and see all the different kinds of seeds.

This is not a stupid question to one who has never seen seeds or things growing.

Answer 6

That is because they are picked early in their life cycle before they produce seeds. Same goes for your lawn, let the grass grow long enough and you'll see seeds.

Answer 7

They do make seeds if you let them grow long enought

Answer 8

Good question, I think tom sj answered best.... plus alot of plants have bulbs that you can plant... and keep that baby going.