Carrots
Daucus carota var. sativus
I
found it odd that the familiar orange color of (we had a warmer than usual fall), when I
the carrot wasn’t its original shade; it didn’t cleaned the beds.
get that color until it was introduced into Eu- Carrots have been my constant measure of
rope. Much earlier, at least 300 BCE, when it success and enjoyment—they really are so
was part of a family called Umbelliferae, it was much better than store bought, which seem to
mostly purple and black. So if you’ve re be largely made up of already peeled baby car
cently seen the deep-colored carrots among the rots in plastic bags (proving that convenience
trendy heirloom vegetables at your specialty is king or that scraping a carrot is now consid
grocer, they are actually reverting to type. ered hard labor!) or huge, woody, and split or
When planting from seed, add sand to seeds fashion-model slender carrots, complete with
to help early spacing. Mulch after thinning to greens. To my experience, these are almost al
retain moisture and prevent greening. Th in to ways tasteless.
2 inches apart when tops are 4 inches tall, and
keep surface moist during germination.
I planted a Nantes carrot that promised a The Numbers
medium-size cylindrical variety rather than the Just two carrots provide roughly four times the
narrow tapered ones. During my thinning of recommended daily allowance (RDA) of vitamin A.
the crop, I tried the tiny ones and found them They also boast very good levels of vitamin K, biotin,
tasteless. Later as baby carrots, they had devel and fi ber.
oped some sweetness, but it wasn’t until late For every 100 g raw (3.5 oz ; ½ cup): 41 calories, 0 g
August that the sweetness kept on getting fat, 0 g saturated fat, 10 g carbohydrate, 1 g protein,
better and better all the way up to Christmas 3 g dietary fiber, 69 mg sodium
104 • GROWING AT THE SPEED OF LIFE
