Plant · P-608

Caraway

Carum carvi

Caraway is a biennial spice plant that gives three crops from one sowing: seed for flavoring bread and confectionery and for chewing after a meal to freshen breath and settle heartburn, a root cooked much like parsnip, and a young leaf with a mild parsley-dill flavor for salads. It flowers in its second year, and those flowers are worked by bees and attract the parasitic wasps that control aphids, making it a good companion for most plants - especially shallow-rooted ones, since its own root runs deep. It resents having its roots disturbed, so it is sown straight into the ground, and it self-sows freely enough to keep a stand going without resowing. It dislikes growing near fennel or wormwood.