Gardening and clumpy carrots

I am a murderer.

A carrot murderer.

And not in the cooking way.

Wish I could take pics- but no replacement camera yet, so imagine with me.

I built 3 garden boxes this year- 8 feet long, 3 feet wide and 1 foot high. I filled these boxes with composting material to create 3 composting garden beds that will compost themselves into delightful soil for all type of vegetable and animal topiary living there.

Everything has gone well so far- I've got my rabbit wire up (because rogue bunnies run wild out here and eat everything that isn't protected), my ground-squirrel problem taken care of and my seeds all planted.

My carrots have come up first! And I'm very excited about them- I just wasn't expecting every singe carrot seed to sprout! And because this is my first try to grow the carroty types, and I have HUNDREDS of seeds that I was not about to plant one by one in a 3" by 3" spacing grid, I just dug a shallow furrow and sprinkled carrot seeds around. I thought this was being time-effective. I do not think that any more.

Which brings me to why I'm a murderer.

Yesterday, as I was inspecting and watering the garden and just enjoying being outside sans kiddos (they were in bed!), I decided it was time to "thin out" the carrots. And rightfully so! They have been growing enthusiastically. Too enthusiastically.

I begin to systematically select plants to keep and plants to terminate. All the while I'm trying to decide which plants I want to keep, I'm apologizing to the plants I can't keep.

Me: (ripping up a clod of carrots) I'm so sorry you little guys, it's just that I have to select one of you to occupy this 3" square and you are bunching up in a way that won't work for me. It's okay, I'm just going to return you to the soil in the big compost pile and hopefully you can forgive me someday.

Them: (being ripped out) murderer. you never gave us a chance. I hope you turn orange from eating too much beta-carrotene. Or worse, that your entire garden FAILS because you practiced systematic genocide on helpless baby carrots. YOU planted us here- this is all YOUR fault.

Me: you're right! I'll never do this to another batch of carrots ever again! I will take the time to plant each seed individually in a 3" square grid to maximize output and never commit carrot-murder again!

I came in from pulling up carrots seriously questioning my sanity. Is this what gardening is going to lead to- me talking to my plants and responding to their comments?!

But then Drue and I just laughed at it, and so I guess that's okay.