Carrots Gone WIld

Pin It This was our very first year attempting to grow carrots, which I found to be a little backwards, because according to almost everyone that knows anything about gardening, carrots are supposed to one of the easiest things to grow.  Last Spring, as I was drooling over all the gorgeous heirloom veggies in our seed catalogs, I just couldn't resist ordering the kaleidoscope carrots.  I've never seen such a beautiful assortment of carrots in my life.  The picture showed this amazing bundle of red, purple, orange, yellow and white carrots.  I thought all carrots were orange!!  Those heirloom catalogs never cease to amaze me!!

Anyways...this is what my carrots are supposed to look like.

And, here's what they ended up looking like....

"How", you ask?  Aren't carrots supposed to be easy to grow???  Well, because I was so desperate to have a perfect pile of brightly colored carrots, I babied the crumbs out of these little seeds.  The hubby thought I was nuts, but I was bent on getting a flawless pile of bright carrots just like the catalog showed.  So, I planted each little seed in it's own individual peet pellet.  Well, I take that back, two seeds...just for good measure.  I mean, what if I just put one and it didn't germinate?  Then, I would be a week or maybe two behind on the planting schedule and that would mess everything up, right?!?!?

When each tiny sprout (or two) poked it's head out into daylight, I paid extra attention, keeping it watered and facing the sunshine.  As they began to outgrow their pellets, they got transplanted into bigger pots and babied some more.  Then, when the weather was just right, and the seedlings were big enough to hold their own, we planted them in the front yard. 

Well, apparently, the thin mesh holding the peet pellet together doesn't really dissolve like we thought it did.  We've just never tried them out on root veggies before, so we have never pulled something small out of the ground that had been grown in one.   My poor carrots were grown around and under and in the mesh...it was so ugly!! 

The moral of the story...sometimes you have to just put the carrot seeds in the ground and let them grow.  A lesson on not trying to control everything for me, and two points for the hubby :)

I know I'm not the only total gardening failure out there.  Someone make me feel better with some of their stories! :)