Over the few years I've been gardening more and more. It started with a container herb patch, morphed into an attempt to Bonsai various plants and ending up where I am now with a patch of dirt on body corporate land in the unlikely place between a swimming pool and Sydney Harbour.
This is my first real garden and I've probably jumped into rather quickly. I looked up companion planting but when it came down to it I still planted creeping plants (rockmelon, zuchinni, mint etc) next to carrots and tomatos. But it's all a learning process and that what this blog is about. My garden, what i've got, how I've done it and as much information about the various bits as I can research and pass on.
The title Dragon Carrots come from a type of carrot of the same name. It's a purple carrot. Did you know that originally, before selective breeding became all the rage, carrots were purple, white and Orange. It wasn't until the orange carrots were selectively bred in revenance to the House of Orange in the Netherlands. I stumbled across this breed recently while looking for some more unusal heirloom varieties and they represent my first harvest so seemed appropriate.
On top of that, just this morning I was sent a post from the University of Southern Queensland that purple carrots are being postitioned as the next supervegetable. The results seen from feeding purple carrot juice to overwieght "western diet" fed rats in quite remarkable. It quotes that compared to your regular orange carrots "purple carrots have up to 28 times more anthocyanins, the antioxidant that creates the purple-red pigment in blueberries and raspberries, among other foods."
So combine the two references and you have the Dragon Carrot blog. Hope you enjoy it.
Lincoln, this is great and interesting and answered many of the questions I have asked at vegetable stores and just been given blank looks..never thought I would be so knowledgeable on 'small marrows'....as we call them in Wales!!
ReplyDeleteLInc, Read your blog, great idea. Hopefully I'll be able to contribute in a more fruitful way later on. The heirloom tomatoes yuo gave me are powering away but as yet no flowers. Should I give more fertiliser?
ReplyDeleteWith the tomato's make sure they are getting lots of sun 8 hours a day. Hot afternoon sun can be too much and if you see blossom drop shift the plants out of the afternoon sun.
ReplyDeleteSave your old tea leaves which are high in nitrogen. If you have a compost, tea leaves(and coffee) helps with decomposition and narrows the PH to 6.5 (ideal for most vege's). I throw my tea leaves directly around the base of the plants.
Something I'm going to try out is putting my tea leaves in a spray bottle and spraying the leaves. I might call this "tea compost tea" :-).
I've read this can act as a topical burst of nutrients that kick start flowers and help fruits.
Let me know if you try and this how it went.
I love the idea of a Dragon carrot - it sounds quite mythical! It is interesting to read about the health benefits of alternative coloured carrots as they are also making their mark in the food industry as natural dyes. The purple carrot is in great demand, as is the black carrot. The dye from purple carrots changes to brown when heated, to red in acid and to blue in alkaline and the black carrot dye can replace the pink in carmine.
ReplyDelete