Deb Lewis

***there is danger of confusing it with any of
several poisonous plants, ***

It's true the flowers look similar and the first year leaves can look
similar but the tubers are
different and the smell is very different and in the second year the mature
plants are quite different in appearance and not so easy to confuse.

The root of the wild carrot smells very carroty. Unmistakable. The Water
Hemlock root looks different, has no carrot smell and when cut open is
segmented with hollow chambers. The whole plant of the water hemlock
smells something like a muskrat. <g> Both are members of the Parsley
family.
And I think I might rather eat the Hemlock than have another of those
terrible bitter carrots. <g> Water Hemlock is the more common Hemlock in
the rocky Mountains, so I know that one pretty well. Wild carrot isn't
common in Montana.

There are other edible and inedible family members with similar flowers.
The root of the
Yampa is a little carrot like in flavor and sweet. MUCH better tasting than
the wild carrot.<g>

Deb Lewis

Deb Lewis

***I still remember the taste of carrots from my grandmother's garden,
freshly picked and washed off under the hose! Danielle loves to eat
cherry tomatoes and green beans right out of the garden. ***

My dad and his brother owned a commercial greenhouse when I was little and I
used to sneak into the tomato house and hide under the benches and snarf
tomatoes. I had those tiny, paper Morton salt shakers strategically
stashed for easy access. Ah, sun warmed tomato!

Dylan used to like to help me in the garden when he was little. He
especially liked looking for Daddy Longlegs in the green beans. He'd pick
them up and sometimes they'd get away from him and he'd come up to me and
say, "Mom, I have a longlegs problem," and I'd get the silly thing off his
head and put it in his hand again. <g> I have a picture of him crouching in
the beans looking for Long Legs. You can hardly tell there's a kid in
there.

***Oh, and I'll
never forget her excitement when she found her first tomato hornworm a
few years back! (they ARE kinda cute!)***

I agree, they are cute. <g> We like garden critters. Even the ones no one
else likes. But a Montana garden is fleeting thing anyway. When the
growing season is only about three months long and I can count on at least
one hard frost during each of those months, it doesn't pay to fret over
whoever or whatever finds my little patch. <g> It's a small garden but I
still manage to grow enough to share. <g>

Dylan and I had great fun in the garden. We used to grow pole beans on
makeshift teepee frames and he'd have little bean forts to play in. We
built spider web frames for orb weaving spiders and put them around the
garden and checked every day to see who'd taken up residence. Dylan would
help me dig potatoes with his Tonka backhoe and then he'd haul them in the
dump truck over to the tarp under the tree. <g> We always had pretty
gardens because he liked to put flowers in the garden rows and paths.<g>
He still likes to garden. He still likes to pick up any longlegs he comes
across. <g>

Deb Lewis