Goldilocks and the Six Carrots

Ok, so remember the bizarre dialogue I incorporated into my last post about the perfectly formed carrot pulled fresh from my backyard earth? Turns out that was something of an anomaly and I'm even more annoyed now that "Me" won out over "FinnyKnits" and chomped down the Miracle Carrot before it could be photographed and eventually bronzed for its utter perfection.

I went out to the garden this morning with the simple task of harvesting another perfect specimen, this time with camera in hand and mouth full of vanilla scone, to feature here as a testament to my impressive gardening prowess. However, it is likely that it was precisely this type of boastful attitude that caused me to have the experience that I did. A way for Mother Nature (and maybe the Burpee people) to say, "Hey lady, this isn't amateur hour around here.", if you will. Because when I pulled my first seemingly ideal candidate from the earth, it was obviously imperfect.

"A runt!" I dismissed with disgust.

Then another oddly shaped carrot was pulled.

"Heh?" I grunted, confused.

Then another, mostly undeveloped and misshapen specimen unearthed.

"What the F?!" I declared.

As it turns out, that pesky activity the gardening people like to call, "Thinning", is actually important. And, if ignored, can result in some inconsistent (I'm using this term extremely loosely) results.

Let's take a lesson from Finny on what happens when we don't thin our seeds properly.

(From left to right)
Specimen #1: Too young. Pulled too soon.
specimen #2: Too skinny. Allowed to grow too close to its neighbor.
specimen #3: Too lewdly formed. Allowed to grow to close to its neighbor, although appears to have won out at some point because it did start to develop after passing up its friends on its trip to the earths core.
specimen #4: Too nasty. Planted to close (read: ON) the sprinkler and was thus deprived of all nutrients.
specimen #5: Too rotund. Planted above something solid and forced to grow round instead of long.
Specimen #6: Just right.
Specimen #7: A lemon.

And so, when I return to the garden this winter (ew), I will remember this historic moment in time when I, as my dad would like to say, "learned something", and will spread the seeds evenly and take the time to properly thin them when they start to sprout instead of doing what I did this time. Which was to say, nothing.

Apparently applying the Darwin theory to gardening isn't always effective. So, from here on out (or at least with carrots as they've blatantly proved me wrong), I will apply the Goldilocks method. Which is that I shall thin them before they sleep shoulder to shoulder in my (vegetable) bed and emerge deformed.

And they lived happily ever after. The End.