This spring, I decided to swallow my doubts and get a community garden plot.
Hopefully, in future seasons, this will enable me to try out some forgotten historic vegetable cultivars. For now, I’m starting simple with a patch of hot peppers. Seeing how I can’t expect a harvest until late summer, imagine my surprise when I found edible vegetables waiting in the garden. It seems that someone abandoned some carrots last year and they over-wintered. While they could have been better cared for, I found plenty of useable ‘carrot meat’ and greens.
The purple tops on some of the larger carrot roots hinted at the varied and colorful history of the carrot. Some historians believe that carrots in antiquity were primarily white, yellow, or purple. The myth goes that orange carrots were bred by the Dutch to honor William of Orange, but that has little evidence behind it. Carrot historians aren’t really promoting that story any longer, although the Dutch did cultivate orange carrots. Unlike many vegetables that have been bred for appearances, carrots haven’t suffered much nutritionally as a result. The preference for deep orange carrots has come along with an increase in Vitamin A content.
