Baby Carrot Killer

I've read enough at this point to understand that thinning plants is the way to produce strong plants. Carrots are no exception. But I find my self on the anti-thinning side of the fence. It seems to heartless to rip these little baby carrots out of the ground when they are the only damn thing in the garden that has insisted on growing through a microburst, a Tropical Storm, record-breaking flooding and a hot Florida summer. And to top it all off, we planted them waaaay out of season.

So the idea of grabbing these little troopers by their baby soft green sprouty tops and yanking them out of the ground to a certain death just seemed wrong. But I suppose you have to sacrifice a few for the greater good, so yesterday was judgment day for many of our little carrots. I will admit to not understanding why you can't just plonk these little carrots into another row for them to continue growing. So I did bung some into another row just to give them another shot at life. I'm sure I'll be discarding them within the week.

So the thinning began. I felt like the Grim Reaper of baby carrots. It was sad. I read that when they're 4 inches tall they should be thinned to 2 inches apart. Mine were all so close together that they were touching.

But we yanked.
And pulled.
And tossed their little corpses to one side.
And sniffed them and marveled at how carroty they actually smelled.
Then stuck some in the ground just to see if they'd take root again. Why not? They were destined for carrot death anyway.

So there you have it. Our first thinning over with. We haven't had to thin anything before because pulling out dead plants doesn't count as thinning according to my gardening book.