Lessons from Carrots

GARDEN PARTY. This year Team Leslie had the sweetest little garden in front of  our townhouse here in Seward. 

• a few rows of lettuce
• three small cabbages
• one prolific zucchini plant
• four potato plants (for the Fall Equinox Potato Parade tradition, of course)
• lots and lots of carrot tops

Now I'm not a green thumb, and so consider it a minor miracle that anything I plant grows at all. Beyond a daily water, some weed pulling here or there, and significant hope, I don't really tend gardens. So slugs have their way with the cabbage leaves, the bitter lettuces I didn't harvest bolt a mile high, and, apparently, a gazillion carrots grow next to each other, competing desperately for resources, because I didn't thin them out. Whoops. 

Whether or not there are even potatoes or carrots in the soil remains a mystery until the day of the Potato Parade, which happened a few weeks ago. J, Indigo and I tentatively dug around a bit before the event, to confirm something was there, lest we be really embarrassed when guests arrived. We unearthed teeny tiny potatoes, and teeny tiny carrots, and breathed a sigh of relief; the annual micro gleaning could commence!

Like the past 7 years, we met up with fellow crazy people, donned wacky costumes, pedaled around town, stopped at homes of said crazy people, dug up edible roots and tubers, and ended the parade with a harvest themed potluck. A lovely venture all around.

LESSONS FROM CARROTS. Usually the potatoes are the stars of the show, but this year, our overcrowded carrot patch got top billing. They were so darn fun to look at and munch! And I decided they could teach us some pretty valuable lessons about life and love, too:

Despite what we're often shown, carrots come in all shapes and sizes. And they all taste great!

Love is beautiful between all sorts of carrots and should be honored and nourished so it can reach its full potential.

So there you go. Lessons from carrots. Feel free to pass along what your vegetables teach you! And now for a few more pix of the scene that day:

Getting costumed up to ride. 

Harvesting potatoes and educational carrots from our little garden!

Waterfront buffet of fall delights. Each dish had local offerings from salmon to blueberries to pea-pods to miniature Moose Pass (20 miles inland of Seward) apples.

I didn't get a chance to ask her "why" before she crossed and left the parade. Next year!