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Carrots are native to the part of the world that encompasses Afghanistan,
India, and eastern Russia. Ladies at the court of Queen Elizabeth I adorned
their hair with carrot tops. When the British Navy blockaded West Indian
sugar from entering Europe in the 18th century, chemists made sugar from
organic carrots, much as sugar is still extracted from beets (incidentally,
rabbits much prefer beets to carrots).
Carrots were originally white, yellow, or violet; the orange, carotene-laden
root we are familiar with today was developed by the Dutch.
Commercially grown "baby carrots" are often no such thing, but full-grown
carrots hacked into miniatures, just as "chicken tenders" resemble no part
of any natural-grown chicken.
Because carrots traditionally would not overwinter past March, whether in
storage or the field, a sweet carrot pie was a common late-winter dessert on
American family farms.
Coffee grounds make superb fertilizer for growing carrots. Radishes are good
plant-buddies to carrots: radishes planted in the same rows as carrots break
the soil for delicate carrot seedlings and are natural preventers of
overcrowding. And, when the radishes are harvested before the young carrots
are taken out of the ground, the carrots will grow into the space vacated by
the radishes.
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