Things That Broke My Heart in May

Remember when I showed you some large buckets of dirt and bragged about how green my thumb was going to be this year?

Well, I was doing everything right. I had those suckers in direct sunlight all afternoon, and I watered them before bed every night, and I tracked my little pots' progress in the Sprout It app on my phone so I knew they were doing what they were supposed to. I all but sang lullabies to them.

And the leaves of my sweet carrots and beets got HUGE. (At least in my opinion.)

Some of them were over six inches tall. So when Sprout It told me it was time to harvest them, I didn't question it.

I picked the largest-leaved beet and started to pull it up, and the roots were thin enough that they all snapped. I thought, "That's weird, beets are supposed to have sturdy stalks. Where's the beet head?" And so then I dug all the way down to the bottom of the container looking for the beet. There was no beet. So then I panicked and ripped all of them up and dug through the entire container looking for beets, to no avail.

If I had been in a right frame of mind, I would have left the others to continue growing, but I was like IT'S TIME TO PICK THEM WHERE ARE THE BEETS WHAT'S WRONG WITH ME THAT I CAN'T GROW BEETS.

Sprout It also said it was harvest time for the carrots. They only fared slightly better. Don't be fooled by their close-up; they were only about the length of my pinkie finger, if that.

Can I tell you a sad story? (Because this sad story needs a sad-story predecessor.) When our seedlings (that we were growing separately from the carrots and beets) were all sprouted, we waited a tiny bit too long to get them into pots. Matt was convinced they were all going to die (they did) and so I got home one night really late, and it was pouring rain, and I found him out on the balcony trying to pot all these little seedlings by himself.

It was also raining when my beets didn't grow and my carrots weren't ready, and I was digging through the dirt looking for the non-existent bounty. And once I found I had none, I decided to stand out on the balcony in the drizzle for a little while, hoping Matt would get home soon because I was depressed and I wanted to be dramatic for a minute. But it was cold and he didn't get home fast enough, so I just took my sparse carrots and beet leaves inside and washed them. And Matt cooked the greens up as a side dish to go with dinner.

I am really disappointed they didn't grow, but I learned to let things grow longer if they don't seem ready, and to not rip my whole garden up in a panic.

I still have a basil plant, a cherry tomato plant and a hot pepper plant going, so hopefully those will fare better. So far I have one tiny hot pepper and another medium-sized one, and six little tomatoes. And the basil's looking mighty fine. I must try to be patient.

Have you successfully harvested anything so far this year? Do you have any garden fail stories that will make me feel better?