07/25/2026
Out looking for mayapples tonight with the kids, and I saw the tallest Queen Anne’s Lace I’ve ever seen!!! 🤯
Queen Anne’s Lace is also known as wild carrot…and yes, they are edible carrots! 🥕 Carrots are biennial, meaning they take 2 years to mature. Their first year of growth is when you should harvest them; they will form big green compound leaves and you dig or pull out the roots to eat…yum! Their second year of growth they focus their energy on growing flowers, like in this picture. The roots are not good for eating at this stage because they become way too tough. The carrot is more focused on forming seeds and reproducing than it is storing energy in its roots.
🥕The carrot family (Apiaceae) of plants, have several poisonous plants, including water hemlock which is the deadliest plant you’ll find in Wisconsin. Ingesting any part of that plant will kill you. So, it’s super important to be able to ID these wild carrots and have absolutely zero doubt you know what it is. Here’s a checklist you can use:
-2-4 times green compound leaves
-whole plant covered in little hairs
-dark purple flower at the center of a large, dense umbel of many white flowers
-white/off-white root that smells like carrot
‼️Look up water hemlock before you set out to find wild carrots so you know what to look out for! Water hemlock grows near water (hence the name) but I do occasionally find it in ditches growing by wild carrots, if the ditches hold a lot of water.
Always do your research, and use a good quality guide book when foraging 🫶🏻 Sam Thayer’s field guide is a very very good one.
Would you try wild carrots? 🥕 🐰
