A New Item in the Garden

Saturday morning featured beautiful blue skies and sunshine that made you feel like a million bucks.  On days like this I wanted to be in the garden, readying things for spring planting.  Unfortunately, the ground is far too wet to work and the wintry weather still isn't over yet.  I heard we'll be in the 30's next week.  I did get my hoe out of the garage and hoed all the winter grass and bermuda grass that was threatening the young onion plants.  After five rows of hoeing, I was ready for a break.  As I walked back toward the house, I knelt down and while I was at ground level, I took a photo looking south and west just over the beautiful green foliage of the three carrot rows.

The greenery is so lush and healthy and happy.  It is very tempting to the animals.  If you look in the photo below on the right side, you can see that I had to resort to using the old garden picket fence to use as a barrier.  You can see it standing straight up in the air tied to the outer fence.  One day I walked out and the goats were standing up on the fence, craning their necks over and eating my sugar snap peas!  Not a good deal.  The picket fence barrier thwarted their plans, thank goodness.  We have been eating lots of fresh sugar snap peas.  So delicious!

As I was looking at the carrot greens, I decided that some would be ripe for the picking judging by the size of the greens.  Sure enough.  I pulled a handful of nice carrots.  Except they weren't your traditional orange carrots.  These were white carrots.  They were from a packet of Seeds of Change Colorful Carrot Blend Seeds.  Check 'em out:

I brought them to the rain bucket and washed them off.  The cows were really looking at the carrot greens with covetousness and gluttony in their eyes.  I certainly saw it.  I'll be back in a bit to give them the greens.  I just want to go show Tricia and the boys the white carrots.  I've never grown them before.

When I brought them inside, they thought they were parsnips.  I've never grown parsnips, either, but these aren't parsnips.  I did a little research on white carrots from THIS LINK.  Here are some facts on white carrots:

White carrots are pigment-free and they contain phytochemicals that work with nutrients and dietary fibre to protect against diseases like colon cancer. The phytochemicals in white carrots can also help reduce the risk of stroke. White carrots are good for carotene allergy sufferers. These varieties are very low in total carotenoid content and lack any pigmentation hence the presence of the white colour. They tend to have a smoother flavour than orange carrots.

They do contain naturally occurring, health-promoting substances, called phytochemicals, natural bioactive compounds found in plant foods that work with nutrients and dietary fibre to protect against disease. One might say these are the least healthy of carrots but nevertheless have a rich taste.  These chemicals may be important in reducing the risk of atherosclerosis, which is the build up of fatty deposits in artery walls. White carrots are preferably used in baby foods to prevent them from forming orange skin.

Russ promptly washed them, peeled them, and cut them up and we cooked them.  Interesting looking, for sure, but they seemed sweeter and tastier than a traditional orange carrot.