Garden Surprise

We have a garden bed in the backyard that we haven't done anything with since we moved in September, so it had gotten really overgrown. We decided we wanted to try to grow some strawberries, and I had read that the best time to plant them is February or March, and they should bloom in June.

A few weeks ago we got several strawberry plants and then seeds for cucumbers, carrots and sunflowers. We spent several hours cleaning up the bed and we were in for a big surprise -- we discovered giant carrots growing in the garden!


We were so excited, you would've thought we had discovered gold in the soil


In all we had about a dozen carrots in there. I read that they are typically ready to harvest in September or October, so I think they were about 4 months past ready to be pulled.

Ella with our carrot crop




I didn't trust some of the giant mutant ones, I figured they were just too far gone. But we did eat some of the normal ones, and they were surprisingly sweet and very good!

We did end up finishing the bed, and planted the strawberry plants, cucumber and carrot seeds, and then sunflower seeds in the soil behind the bed.





We planted them about two weeks ago, and a few days ago we discovered our first tiny green berries. So far, so good!


The cucumbers have started to sprout, so we'll see how they do. I am hopeful the carrots will grow since we know that soil was great for carrots this past year and that was with us completely neglecting them. Unfortunately most of our sunflower seeds were dug up and look half-eaten, so I think we may have some birds that are very partial to sunflower seeds.

Regardless of what we end up with, it's been a lot of fun, and Ella loves being a little gardener, so it's been a great project so far.