I heard an old Phil Collins song every time I looked at the burlap growing container and the wilting carrot foliage, "I wish I could just make you turn around - turn around and water me".
This was back in the spring and I had thrown some carrot seeds into one of these new-fangled girdles, the burlap grow bags given to all the garden bloggers at Garden2Blog by those fun-loving gals at The Seed Keeper Company.
We were in between houses, living in a rental while the big move was looming, my mind wasn't really on carrots. Building a home involves a thousand tiny decisions that add up to a very big deal if you don't do it right. So I was a little preoccupied.
"How can you just walk away, look at this beautiful foliage". Foliage was all I really expected. At first the bag sat on the picnic table and then after we moved it sat wherever I could find a spot, dodging the concrete guys and the stonemasons while the exterior was finished. It found a resting place on the driveway for awhile where the garage doors reflect at a couple hundred degrees, caught in a cycle of water and wilt.
Oh and yeah, I never got around to thinning them either.
By now the burlap bag and its withering contents were a source of embarrassment, "And you coming back to me is against all odds". But I couldn't quite throw it away. As the patio and landscaping was nearing completion, I took the bag of ferny, browning foliage inside out of sight so as not to completely ruin my reputation as a garden writer and master gardener. It sat on a table in the garden room for a week while I went in a hundred different directions doing everything else but worrying about carrots.
Finally in a frenzy of checking off my to-do list and fall approaching, I looked over at the bag and sighed. "So take a look at me now". I felt around down in between the stems and lo and behold, I met with firm resistance. I dumped the bag into a tub, that's the beauty of these grow bag contraptions, you don't have to dig.
Look at what I found. Forty carrots. I figured they would taste like crap after all of that neglect. Surprisingly they were as sweet as any homegrown carrot could be. "You're the only one who really knew me at all". Just think if I had put the grow bag in a place of honor and paid more attention? Imagine what you could grow!
When you're done with the grow bag it folds up for easy storage, so "there's just an empty space", no big pots to wrangle until the next season when the burlap girdle will be ready to replant.
Check out all burlap growing girdles and all the other great things on Carol and Kerry's site at The Seed Keeper Company.
