My blog’s statistics indicate that “wild carrot” is one of the number one search terms leading people to my site. This video is for them. At the end of the video you will see a shot of our meal: balsamic glazed wild carrot and stir fried wild pea tips over rice.
I had a yard full of these when I lived in Oregon. Never knew they were edible.
Nice tip about finding the bigger roots. Shame that kind of disturbed soil is usually next to (or because of) something possibly toxic like roads/rail or poisoned farmland/rivers. I’ve dug up some huge dandelions by roadsides, but felt trepidation when eating them in stir-frys or as coffee, and wouldn’t want to make a habit of it. But then I’ll eat cancer-causing, system disrupting grains until the cows come home… (and then eat the grain-fed cows too!) so, go figure.
Only found one patch of wild carrot near where I live, so I took some seeds and have been spreading them about in seedballs & as is optimistically. I figure it’s the least I can do.
cheers
Ian
[...] Emily Porter will teach you how to identify wild carrot in her new video here. No need to worry about mistaking it for poison hemlock any [...]
How can you distinguish between wild carrot and poison hemlock with out the flowers? Also would you be able to tell by the smell of the root?
Thanks, Larkin
Ways to tell wild carrot from hemlock.
1. Wild carrot flower stem is hairy, hemlock flower stem is smooth/have no hairs.
2. Wild carrot flower stem is solid, hemlock flower stem is hollow.
3. Wild carrot flower stems are green and occasionally have long, reddish stripes. Hemlock flower stem have red/purple spots of assorted size and the occasions partial stripes but will be purple at the bottom.
4. Wild carrot flower stems are not powdery, hemlock flower stems often have a white powder on them.
5. Wild carrot flowers (umbels) are arranged in a a thick, tight pattern with only a small amount of open space between them. Hemlock flowers are much more sparse and have open areas between the smaller flower clusters making up the umbel head.
6. Wild carrots usually don’t grow more than 3-6 feet tall, hemlock can grow 6-9 feet tall.
7. Wild carrot flower umbels will curl up into a “bird’s nest” when they dry, hemlock umbels remain in their original “umbrella” shape when they die and dry up.
That was a nice looking wild carrot. I’ve never found one that big around Houston!