Plant · P-250

Carrot

Daucus carota subsp. sativus

Carrot is an autumn-and-winter crop here, not a spring one: it is frost tolerant and actually sweetens in cold, so sown from late August through November it gives a six-month harvest running December to May, while a spring sowing runs straight into the heat that turns roots woody and makes the plant bolt. The right shape matters as much as the season - a short, broad-shouldered type bred for heavy ground will crop in an amended clay bed where a long slender type just forks and stunts. Left unharvested past its first year it bolts and flowers, drawing hoverflies and parasitic wasps whose larvae eat garden pests - a deliberate trade against the root harvest, since only a few need to be left for it. The roots also make a genuine livestock feed once culled or surplus, rich in beta-carotene, though they need to be introduced to stock gradually to avoid an upset gut.