Yes I know it is November but I literally just pulled my carrots from my garden. I planted them so many months ago I cannot believe they took as long as they did. I have been diligently caring and checking on them since late spring but they have taken forever to “mature”. Well I thought they had matured anyway. All my other occupants in my little raised bed have long since vacated the premises but the little rainbows refused to budge. They sort of reminded me of my little lovie girl who broke my water and then still took 36 hours to join us ;).
I waited patiently and dreamed of the beautiful rainbow beauties I would roast and share at the table with my family on Thanksgiving. I have actually never tasted all the varieties of carrots and was excited to taste them from my own garden. I even ran comically outside to save them from the snowstorm that hit my area at the first sight of flakes. I dashed out and packed them in leaves and covered them with a fitted crib sheet. Yes I really did. 🙂
With frost starting in the other day I decided I could not press my luck any further. I took my little Blueberry girl with me (who had helped me plant the seeds) and went to pull out our rainbow friends. Well I could not have anticipated what we were in for. The carrots were mostly deformed stumps! I had one perfect ruby/purplish beauty and the rest were either microscopic or just stumps. I cannot lie that I was seriously disappointed. We pulled them all out and my lovie was so excited. We took them inside and she ran back and forth to the sink where her step stool was to carefully wash each carrot.
As I watched her pure joy and obvious pride I saw the situation in a whole new light. Where I saw disappointment and failure, she saw carrots, carrots she felt she grew and was proud of. When I stopped to see the situation through her eyes I had to smile, laugh a little at myself and learn my lesson. It was not the show piece carrots I was meant to have this year and that is okay. The process and seeing my baby girl feeling so accomplished and proud was a better reward than I could have hoped for. Better luck next year? We shall see. 🙂
