The Moon was full four nights ago so I’m thinking about harvest. You can see other posts in this series by following my ‘harvest’ tag. This month, let’s admire the carrot.
The British Carrot Growers Association (BCGA) promotes carrots (Daucus carota sativus) and parnips (Pastinaca sativa). You may recall how I named the parsnip as Crop of the Month two months ago. But today, the carrot.
Why do I call the carrot Crop of the Month in January? The Vegetarian Society says that the British carrot’s harvest season lasts from July to April. But that’s an underestimate. The BCGA says that ‘carrots are harvested in Britain almost 12 months of the year using the natural climates in different parts of the country and using different techniques.’ Even when the ground’s frozen, we can eat carrots which have been stored. So any time of year is carrot time. Eat Sensibly names the carrot as one of January’s best choices.
The virtual World Carrot Museum invites us to ‘discover the power of carrots’. The biology and history of this marvellous vegetable include a few surprises. For example, the wild carrot or Queen Anne’s Lace (Daucus carota) isn’t the same species as our cultivated carrot. They just have almost the same name. [Edit] I’ve lost track of where I saw this. Most authors say that Daucus carota is the ancestor of Daucus carota sativus, so I’ll stick with that.
Daucus carota sativus is grown in many countries (scroll down for a list). It comes in many colours – white, yellow, purple and bright orange. The orange varieties were bred in Holland in the 15th century. But people have been eating carrots for almost as long as people have been living in houses. About five thousand years ago, people grew the first domesticated carrots in the land that is now Iran.
Nowadays carrot growing in Britain, like other vegetable growing, happens mostly in East Anglia. Richard Crane and Rod Vaughan of Reading University tell us about the regional importance of horticulture in England and Wales (scroll down to page 16 for their map). That’s why carrots are important for farmers in Nottinghamshire.
The Centre for Alternative Land Use (CALU) provides a crop production guide for carrots. For amateur carrot gardeners, Allotment Growers provides this advice and the Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) provides this advice.
This vegetable is so popular, so widely grown, that we can ask whether genetic modification (GM) has been done to it yet. The European Union (EU)-funded GMO Compass says that GM research is underway for carrots. The research concerns resistance to fungal and nematode infections, also improvements to the carrot’s quality. Field trials of GM carrots have been carried out in the Netherlands. But no GM carrot has yet been approved for commercial use.
If GM crops are grown, there’s concern that transgenes might escape. One way that might happen is that the GM crop might cross with its wild relatives. This would cause ‘introgression’ of the transgene into the wild population. It’s also called ‘horizontal transfer’ of the transgene. Here’s some science about how genes move around in wild carrot populations, and hence about the risk of introgression from future GM carrots into wild carrots.
So you’ve got your carrots. If you keep rabbits, beware: the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA) says that a good rabbit diet won’t be too carroty – hay is more what they need. But your bunnies can enjoy carrots. So can you!
At this time of year, you can eat carrots in hearty winter meals. You can eat them in winter salads. You can eat them in carrot cake. A company which delivers boxes of vegetables, Abel and Cole, offers us these carrot recipes.
I am glad there is a world carrot museum. Carrots are delicious, but I also like to see what else people do with them. A friend of mine once wore 30 pounds of carrots and nothing else, and ran around LA.
Like people do… snork!
My dog enjoys carrots, too.
Dogs love vegetables don’t they? Allegedly, when wolves started being able to digest carbohydrates, they started to evolve into dogs.
“But people have been eating carrots for almost as long as people have been living in houses. About five thousand years ago, people grew the first domesticated carrots in the land that is now Iran.” Probably half of the entries on carrots in my gardening books agree with this, and the others have various origens in Europe some as late as the 19th century in Europe. I think that the latter is due to cross breeding with Queen Anne’s lace.
I use my carrot crop as a barometer of how my horrid clay soil is improving, over time my carrots have been growing longer and thicker. The one’s we buy in a local market (we’ve eaten all of ours from last year) are as much as a pound (litterally, I bought 7 pounds last week, and that was 8 carrots). No doubt grown in sand.
I’ve never had any problems with disease or pests with carrots. Probably because they were never grown commercially near where I’ve gardened, and home gardeners don’t grow them often in heavy clay soil.
I saw a scientific paper showing genetic evidence that carrots aren’t a direct descendant of the wild carrot, but I forget where that paper was. If you find it would you let me know?
Meanwhile I’m glad your carrot growing is successful. It sounds as though you don’t get carrot fly (Psila rosae) which is a terrible problem here in Britain. Apparently it’s known on your side of the Pond too http://georginawrites.hubpages.com/hub/Grow-Organic-Carrots-without-Carrot-Root-Fly
Coffee grounds are recommended for keeping carrot flies away. When I remember, I spinkle used coffee grounds around my carrots.
I’d never heard of that method and will keep it in mind.
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