Suspect grubs ate hedges close to vegetable crop (5,4)

'crop' is the definition.
The answer and definition can be both plants as well as being singular nouns.
Perhaps you can see a link between them that I can't see?

'suspect grubs ate hedges close to vegetable' is the wordplay.
'suspect' indicates anagramming the letters (a suspicious or unusual spelling).
'hedges' means one lot of letters goes inside another (surrounds like a hedge).
'close to' says to take the final letters (the close of something is the end).
The last letter of 'vegetable' is 'e'.
'grubs'+'ate'='grubsate'
'grubsate' is an anagram of 'sugarbet'.
'sugarbet' going around 'e' is 'SUGAR-BEET'.

Can you help me to learn more?