Daucus carota Seeds | Purple Carrot
LATIN NAME: Daucus carota
COMMON NAME: Purple Carrot
Plant Profile
The purple carrot is a root crop of twenty to thirty centimetres with finely divided leaves and a root that is deep violet through the outer layers and often orange or yellow at the core. It is a carrot, not a beet, and it tastes of carrot rather than of earth and sugar.
Purple roots are the older form. The carrot was domesticated in Central Asia, and the first cultivated roots, recorded in Iran and Afghanistan in the medieval period, were purple and yellow. The orange carrot is a later European selection, bred in the Low Countries in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and the story that it was made for the House of Orange is a coincidence rather than a documented commission.
Science & Biotechnology
The purple colour comes from anthocyanins, chiefly cyanidin derivatives acylated with ferulic and coumaric acids, which is why the pigment is more stable to heat than the anthocyanins of a raspberry. It still bleeds into cooking water, and a purple carrot boiled with potatoes will colour them.
The pigments and the carotenoids compete for the same metabolic precursors, and a root can be purple outside and orange inside but rarely rich in both. That is why purple varieties are not a substitute for orange ones if the point is vitamin A: the orange core carries the carotene, the purple layer carries the anthocyanin.
Uses & Benefits
The roots are eaten raw, roasted, or grated into salads, where the colour holds if the dressing is not too acid. In Turkey and in Iran they are used in pickles and in stews, and the juice is sold as a health drink. The leaves are used as a herb in the same way as carrot tops.
The variety is also grown as an ornamental in vegetable beds, and the roots are used to colour rice and yogurt in Anatolia. In the market the small roots are sold in bunches, since the colour fades in storage and a root that has been in a cold store for months looks tired. The seed is also saved from the deepest-coloured roots, since the pigment is heritable and a good line holds its colour for generations.
Growing from Seed
Sow direct, one centimetre deep, in stone-free soil that has not been manured that year, and thin to five centimetres. Germination is slow and the seedlings are weak, so keep the surface moist until the rows are up, and mark them with radish seed, which comes up first.
The roots need a deep, loose tilth; a stone or a clod produces a fork. Water steadily rather than heavily, since a wet then dry cycle splits the root. Lift in autumn before the hardest frost, and store in sand in a cool shed, where the colour keeps better than in a refrigerator.
Our Take
An old carrot with a better colour than a better flavour, and one worth growing for the plate as much as for the pot. Sow it thin and keep the ground moist.
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