Friday, August 10, 2007

Purple Carrots

The Southland Times has a story about the rise in popularity of the purple carrot (link via Stuff). Carrots once came in a wide variety of colours, but changed over time to orange thanks to the influence of patriotic Dutch growers in the sixteenth century. Did you know there's a variety named after Jimi Hendrix called "Purple Haze"?! This article explains its origins and goes into detail about carrots and their intriguing history. Who'd of thought "carrots" and "intriguing" could share space in the same sentence...

Photo and article courtesy of Acorns - You and the World of Plants, a fantastic vegetable site with well written, indepth articles (not all about carrots, mind).

4 comments:

Nigel Olsen said...

I just bought some purple carrot seeds! They're called "Purple Dragon" and they're bound for the garden once it gets a bit warmer.

Mary said...

Crouching Nigel, Purple Dragon..?? Hope that weather improves so you get those beauties into the into the garden. Ciao!

Nigel Olsen said...

Ha! Cheers Mary - I'll email you soon.

Aiuolik said...

Hi! As you probably know, today is the 3rd BlogDay. To this end, who wants to participate has to (1) choose 5 new blogs, (2) talk about them in her/his blog, and (3) inform the chosen blogs consequently.
Since we appreciate your blog, it is one of our suggested blogs! You can see the corresponding post here
Ciao,
Aiuolik&Uncle Pigor

Please note that our blog is in Italian, but only for today the post is in English!