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Carrot Family

This week, we will talk about all of the plants in the carrot family. This family is not just multiple colors of carrots! Let's take a look!

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Carrot Family - 4/15/24-4/21/24

Monday, April 15, 2024

Good Monday morning! It is a brand new week and this week we will be talking about the carrot family which, of course, consists of more than just carrots.

I took the dogs out and it is cloudy and 70° already. David is making an egg casserole for breakfast. We have quite a few orders to fill and mail out this morning. In fact, we won't finish them all today.

Somewhere around 10am, David was still in the house working in his new home office. I was out in Fulfillment, filling orders. David called me and said he needed me immediately. Of course, I thought he had a medical emergency so I went running into the house. When I reached the kitchen, I knew why he called...

I have a two drawer egg container in my fridge that holds 60 eggs. He had some meat marinating on a cookie sheet on the top of this container and pulled it forward instead of lifting it up. This caused 60 eggs to crash to the floor. Out of 60, eight eggs made it. Guess who got to clean up 52 eggs plus move the refrigerator out and clean under and behind it. That egg goo ran under there really fast plus there was a ton of dust under the fridge. An hour later and I finally got everything cleaned up and moved back. This is the third and final time he has done this. I removed the nice egg container out.

It is almost 4pm and 87°. David made some beef jerky on the Traeger. I filled orders most of the day. We have had two customers. None of my Walmart packages have arrived yet. They were supposed to arrive by FedEx on Saturday and on Sunday but FedEx refuses to deliver here on the weekends. We live here and we have told them many times. Now it is almost time for the gate to close and they still have not been here and all of my packages are late. I guess I won't be ordering anything online from Walmart. I made a grocery order for pickup on Friday but some of the things had to be shipped as they were not at the store.

I finally got some of my Walmart packages just before 5pm today, but not all of them. I got what was supposed to come on Saturday and Sunday but I still need the package that was supposed to be here today. FedEx is a mess. They never deliver packages when they say they will. They refuse to come here on weekends even though we live here and we have told them.

Matt discovered late this afternoon that we finally have baby bunnies. Of course, the first one died. He found that one outside of the nesting box. He saw three live ones but said the hay underneath them was moving so there could be more. Mama bunny was outside of the box at the time. We think two more may be pregnant.

So we have been having a gnat problem in the house for the past several weeks. I took the sweet potatoes outside that have been rooting in the kitchen windowsill two weeks ago but the gnats remain. I have been catching a lot of them with sticky traps but they remain. I texted Encino Pest Control and Mark called me right away. He told me to pour bleach into all of the drains tonight and leave it all night long to kill the gnat eggs. That is where they lay them in with the bit of water that stays in the drain. I poured bleach down seven sinks, two tubs, and one shower tonight.

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Carrot Family

The carrot family is also known as the Apiaceae or Umbelliferae family. Members of this plant family tend to have flowers in a shape similar to an upside down umbrella. The flowers all tend to have a very fragrant smell and are radially symmetrical with five small sepals (the green leaves under the petals), five petals and five stamens.

The plants are mostly annuals (plant new plants each year) but they can be perennial (plants that come back year after year) or even biennial (plants that come up every other year). All of the members of this family tend to be cool season plants.

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Tuesday, April 16, 2024

Good morning. The housekeeper comes today. I am in my office and I just saw a gnat go by but there are no new gnats on the sticky traps. I think I will have to hit the drains with bleach again tonight.

This morning, I will be working on the mint and sweet potato plants on the back deck.

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New Sale

We started a new sale today:

Right now, there is a 25% off sale on the following seed packs at https://davidsgardenseeds.com
Encore Loose Leaf Lettuce
Mammoth Grey Stripe Sunflowers
California Giant Zinnias
Herb Epazote
Detroit Dark Red Beets
Tatume Summer Squash
Butterfly Hummingbird Wildflower

Windsor Fava Bean

Tongue of Fire Bean

No coupon code needed. Just add the items to your cart and the discount will calculate at checkout. Hurry and stock up. These are spring favorites!

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So far today, we have had just one customer. It sprinkled on and off during the morning. Michelle came to clean. While she cleaned, I was out back dealing with all of the plants on my the back deck. I first dealt with all of the sweet potatoes. Several months ago, I cut six sweet potatoes in half and suspended them in glasses of water with toothpicks on my kitchen windowsill. As the vines grew, I would cut them and put them in a separate glass to root. Then the gnats started appearing. Two weeks ago, I moved all of the sweet potatoes outside.

So this morning, I first took all of the rooted vines and planted them down by my greenhouse in cloth pots. Last year, I planted them all in the ground. The gophers ate my plants except for seven. Then they proceeded to eat every single sweet potato. When I dug them up, there was nothing but a long tunnel under each plant. This year, I am hoping to actually get sweet potatoes.

Once those were taken care of, I went back to the glasses of sweet potatoes and cut the vines off. I put them all in a clean glass of water to root on my back deck. Then I put all of the sweet potato halves in the compost pail and washed the glasses clean in the kitchen. Then I loaded them all into the dishwasher to sanitize them.

By this time, there was enough drizzle to get wet. I had a bunch of succulent plants in tiny pots so I transplanted each of those into a bigger pot. Once that was complete, I took on my mint plants. Some I had, some I bought at the tomato conference back in January and the rest I bought in March at Doe Re Mi Lavender Farm. I put all of the like ones together and transplanted all of them, then took them to my covered plant area and watered them all. I was so glad to have it all done. I changed clothes and went to work.

Matt picked a ton of beets out of the garden. He took them into the house and placed them in my utility sink without me knowing it. They still had the greens on and were full of sand and bugs. I pulled them all out of there and broke them apart on the back deck and then washed the beets with the hose.

I put all of the stems and greens into a bucket for our chickens. They will enjoy this yummy snack this afternoon. I will deal with the beets themselves later. I still have to blanch the asparagus that I broke apart last night. I did send about half of that as well as four dozen eggs home with Michelle so her family can enjoy them.

I went out this afternoon to see the baby bunnies. All I saw was this but the hay was moving so they are alive under there keeping warm.

A few people came by late today telling us they live right down the street. They put some things on the counter and then said they left their wallet at home but that they would be right back before 5pm. I kept watch but they never showed back up.

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Carrot Family

There are more than 1,500 members of the carrot family. They can be vegetables, herbs, and even flowers. They include:

• Angelica
• Anise
  
• Caraway
  
• Carrots
• Celeriac
  
• Celery
• Chervil
• Coriander (seeds)/Cilantro (leaves)
• Cumin
  
• Dill
• Fennel
• Lovage
  
• Parsley
  
• Parsnip
• Queen Anne's Lace
  

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Wednesday, April 17, 2024

Good morning. It is once again overcast but no rain is expected today. We will be closing down for a few hours at lunch today to take the team out to eat. We have not done this in several months.

I need to go out this morning and plant the rest of my Greenstalk in the backyard.

I believe we have gotten rid of the gnats at last. I did not see any of them while sitting in the den last night. There are no new gnats on the sticky traps. I think the Clorox down nine drains in the house did it!

I did plant the rest of the terra cotta Greenstalk in the backyard. I planted spinach, ornamental sweet peppers, and spinach.

Since tomorrow is our anniversary, we took the team out for lunch today. We invited a few friends to go with us as well. Some could not make it. We had ten who could make it. We went to Triple C in Devine and had a great time. We sang happy birthday to one friend and they sang happy anniversary to us. David handed out tortilla blankets to everyone, even to the waitress! They are nice and warm.

Then we came home and I found a few piles of barf and number two on my office floor in the house. I think Ethel had an upset tummy while we were gone. She seems to be feeling much better now. It is 4pm. Poor Ethel. She lives in my office. Or at least that is where she spends most days and nights now that she is older. The cat joins her most afternoons. The cat is 14 and Ethel is 13 so my office is the old folks home. The other two dogs are two years old.

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Carrot Family

Some members of the carrot family are poisonous. They include:

• Fool's Parsley
• Giant Hogweed
  
• Poison Hemlock
• Spotted Cowbane
• Water Dropwort
  
• Water Hemlock
• Wild Parsnip
  

Above is a picture of Fool's Parsley, also known as Aethusa cynapium. The plant stands tall with finely divided, bright green, parsley-like leaves. The height approximately ranges from 30 to 60 cm. The tiny, characteristic white flowers which have green bracts underneath are clustered in an umbrella shape at the top. You can see how easily it would be to think this is actual parsley.

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Thursday, April 18, 2024

Happy 37th wedding anniversary to David and me. Thirty-seven years ago, I walked down a church aisle and married David. A lot of people told me not to do it, most of my family included. Most of my friends warned me about him. Not sure what they were warning because they barely knew him. The Army brought him to El Paso so they did not know him for long. Anyway, 37 years later, here we are, still married and owning a wonderful business.

Of course, when I got up, I went into my office and Ethel was sick again in the night so I got to clean that up. Then I made poached eggs and apple slices for breakfast. Then I boiled some eggs for us for later. After that, I blanched the asparagus from the garden. Once that was complete, I finally blanched all of those beets and peeled and chopped them. Now I have black fingernails. Yay!

David and Matt left at 9:30am to go get father/son makeovers. I still wasn't even dressed. I came out at 10am after cleaning the kitchen and no one had bothered to open the store. One of our employees clocked out and left right then, not saying a word to me. I texted David and he said that he had gotten a text...Whatever!

I cleaned out the pond and now I am waiting the 30 minutes it takes for the de-chlorinator to work before I can add clean water.

I have a lot of beautiful eggs in the refrigerator if you need farm fresh eggs. We have a few one pound bags of ground pecan coffee left and we still have several whole bean one pound coffees, not to mention some toffee covered pecans and some white chocolate pecans.

Come on by the store today and get your spring garden seeds. We are open until 5pm.

We had two carloads of visitors this morning. They came separately but within minutes of each other. Both wanted a tour. Matt took them all together on a nice tour. One couple bought seeds, plants, and eggs. The other took the tour and left.

It amazes me how much free gardening information we put out on this website as well as on David's Garden Seeds and people are not utilizing it. I refer people to it all the time, even those who buy nothing from us. We care about gardening and farm life. This takes a lot of time out of my day, just like giving tours takes a lot of time out of the work day, especially when people don't even buy a soda. Maybe I will take a week off...

Two days have now gone by and the neighbors never did come back with their money to buy the items they left on the counter. It makes me wonder why. Oh well.

It has been overcast here for a whole week. The humidity is just horrible. It has grown worse each day. It is currently 90° so it is safe to say summer is here to stay. Last Friday, the weatherman said there would be a cool front, but that never happened. I just hate the awful heat and humidity.

I just finished watering all of the snake plants, aloe vera, and everything in the Greenstalks on the Farm Store deck. A few things are finally coming up.

We haven't had any additional customers today and now the gate is closed and our employees have gone home. Time to cook dinner. There is nowhere good out here to go to eat so we are staying home. Have a good evening.

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Carrot Family

Because it is difficult to tell in the wild if a member of the carrot family is poisonous, it is recommended not to forage for carrots, parsley, parsnips, etc. Yes, wild carrots and wild parsnips as well as hemlock are all members and are all poisonous or at the very least will make you sick. The best thing to do is buy seeds from a reputable seed company and grow these things in your garden. Do not find these plant members in the wild and try to eat them.

Wild carrot, also called Queen Anne's lace, comes from Eurasia. This was brought over to the United States. It is related, and looks like the poisonous plant, poison hemlock, another introduced weed. Wild carrot is often used in flower arrangements and bouquets.

Queen Anne's Lace flowers are characterized by their intricate, flat clusters of tiny white flowers, resembling delicate doilies or lacework. This image shows the flowers in full bloom during a bright, sunny day, casting light and shadows on the feathery green leaves and stalks.

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Friday, April 19, 2024

Good morning. It is already 11am and I am just finding the time to get on here. I went out and watered all of my plants and trees out back this morning.

It is another overcast day but the air feels less humid than the rest of the week. I heard some construction going on out in the parking lot. Nacho is here starting to build a ramp in the parking lot to go into the store. It will take away about 1/4 of the parking and a good deal of my zinnia garden. It has to be 30 feet long and will be three feet wide according to regulation. I had no idea.

Nacho finished up early and left after cementing in the posts for the ramp.

After that, we ventured into town to see the nursery in Poteet called Bodega Gardens. I looked at their website and their Facebook page but no hours are posted. We drove to it and they are chained shut with no vehicles there. We did not see any signs or indications that they are even open for business except the name is painted on the glass on the window inside the locked fence. We have been there before but it used to be a giant flea market owned by one woman who was selling it in 2020. Why would an open business be closed on a Friday afternoon at 2pm? So we came back home.

I have seen people talk on the community Facebook page about how great this place is. I have posted on the community page that we are open and are having sales, etc., and I get "I never heard of it" or no response. Interesting, huh? Someone told me that we are "outsiders" so they will not acknowledge us. Wow. We have been here almost five years now and this new place just recently opened. We are a trusted seed provider and have been close to 15 years all across the nation but none of the people in the town come here. We get folks from all over Texas but not by where we live...

We may be taking some classes soon to learn how to raise bees.

We got pizza, wings, and salad from Constantino's tonight and just had fun hanging out.

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Carrot Family

Some non-edible members of the carrot family can cause a bad sun sensitivity to your skin if they get on your skin in the first place.Once they are on your skin and the sun hits it, you can get a painful burn on your skin and blisters.

I read that poison hemlock was used to kill criminals back in the old days back in Ancient Greece. That is how the ancient philosopher, Socrates, died back in 399 BC.

Poison hemlock looks like Queen Anne's Lace, a flower in the carrot family, but it flowers at a different time than Queen Anne's Lace. The two are easily confused.

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Saturday, April 20, 2024

Good Saturday morning. Fiesta in San Antonio started two nights ago so we probably won't have many customers today. Our eggs are $4 for Fiesta. Come by and get some. We are in a state of construction although no one will be working on it today.

I have to go out and feed all of the animals this morning since my helper does not normally work on Saturdays. It is currently 70° and the high is supposed to be just 79°. It will be a good day for you to come out and get your spring flower seeds.

Animals are all taken care of. The Farm Store is open. There is a mobile car detailer here that David found on Facebook. He is detailing the truck. I hope he does a good job.

After more than three hours, the detailer finished the truck. I watched while working on orders from my window and if he would have put his phone away, he would have finished long ago...He made multiple calls and lots of texting.

It is now 1:30pm and I felt a few sprinkles while I was outside greeting some customers. We had two customers today, plus the trash truck and the mailman, in addition to the detailer.

I finally got to see one of the baby bunnies who was out of the hay briefly when I went in there this afternoon. A few minutes later, she was back under the hay. I did get a photo.

We went into Pleasanton for dinner with some friends at a Mexican restaurant. While we were eating, the cold front finally showed up. When we stepped outside just before 8pm, it was so cold! Finally around 11pm or so, the rain came.

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Carrot Family

Who doesn't love to eat sweet carrots? They come in a variety of colors like orange, red, white, yellow, and various shades of purple from light purple to an almost black flesh color. Carrots are delicious and very good for you.

Celery, celeriac, parsnips, and parsley are also parts of the carrot family and are good to eat. Interestingly, they are all fairly easy to grow from seed in your backyard garden.

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Sunday, April 21, 2024

Good morning! I don't think the rain lasted too long because each time I woke up in the night, there was none. I woke up starving at 4:50am and I could not get back to sleep so here I am. It is 55° and pleasantly cool.

It is now 8am and I went out in the cold to feed the animals. I also walked through the orchard because the back gate was wide open again. I took a photo of the back acre that we have not yet used that our neighbors wanted us to sell to them. No, that is okay. We want our land. That is why we bought it...I want to put some goats back there.

Some of the trees are laden with peaches and apples so that is exciting. The fig trees are leafed out. The grape vines have come to life with leaves and now have teeny tiny grape clusters. The raspberry bushes have leaves and flowers. The mulberries are forming. I am sure it will be a great year for fruit.

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A Lesson

A father said to his daughter “You have graduated with honors, here is a car I bought many years ago. It is a bit older now. But before I give it to you, take it to the used car lot downtown and tell them I want to sell it and see how much they offer you for it.

The daughter went to the used car lot, returned to her father and said, “They offered me $1,000 because the said it looks pretty worn out.”

The father said, now “Take it to the pawn shop.” The daughter went to the pawn shop, returned to her father and said,”The pawn shop offered only $100 because it is an old car.”

The father asked his daughter to go to a car club now and show them the car. The daughter then took the car to the club, returned and told her father,” Some people in the club offered $100,000 for it because it’s a Nissan Skyline R34, it's an iconic car and sought by many collectors”

Now the father said this to his daughter, “The right place values you the right way,” If you are not valued, do not be angry, it means you are in the wrong place. Those who know your value are those who appreciate you......Never stay in a place where no one sees your value.

I found the above on Facebook and I do not know who the author is but I learned this lesson today after being treated like dirt.

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Carrot Family

Here in Texas, we eat a lot of Cilantro, the leaves of the Coriander/Cilantro plant, a member of the carrot family. We sell the seeds to grow this plant which is known up north and back east as Coriander. Interestingly, I grew up in New York and in some recipes we had, they called for ground coriander. Never did we hear the word cilantro. When we moved to Texas, no recipes here call for coriander. There are many that call for cilantro. Little did we know at first that they come from the same plant.

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Return from Carrot Family to Year Five On The Farm

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