carrot problemas

So for every lovely long tapered carrot like the ones on the left, the garden is producing another troubling specimen like the ones on the right. Most gardening how-to books say this happens to carrots when there's too much nitrogen in the soil or when there are big clods of clay or rock in the soil....one that I've looked at says it could also be because of over-watering or overcrowding.
Since I knew that it was a no-no to plant carrots on freshly manured or newly fertilized soil, I planted in a bed that hadn't received compost, manure or complete organic fertilizer since the last crop it grew. But still...I have a problem this year....I know I didn't over-water and it's not because of overcrowding so perhaps I needed to till the soil more carefully in the spring before I planted...maybe still too many small rocks or maybe my soil is still too fertile? It isn't making much sense to me right now....

So my weekly Homegrown Basket customers are receiving the tidier roots while CJR and I are feasting on the others, some of which are good for a few laughs like Mister and Missus, above. Sometimes, I'll include one or two fun ones for my customers if I think they'll appreciate it!

Unfortunaately, this one isn't even funny......grrrr......

I hear that those packaged baby carrots that we can buy in the grocery stores are actually not baby carrots but the mis-shapened ones like these that are whittled away by a machine and made to look like what we expect carrots to look like. That seems like a good way to reduce the wasting of a lot of carrots....but I'm not sure that it's true since I have seen how many carrots are left lying in the big-production fields after the harvester has gone through.

To ease my carrot disappointment of 2010, I went back to last year's photos to remind myself that it is possible to grow beautiful carrots in my garden. Last year I had a gorgeous crop of orange, purple, red and yellow carrots. Purple and orange are my favourites!
Here's a link to a most amazing site all about carrots. Who knew there was so much to learn about carrot. (don't miss the carrot clarinet!)

Some beautiful carrots in all different colours that I saw last fall at the greenmarket in NYC. To grow some just like these for next year's Homegrown Baskets is something for me to aspire to!

island flowers

Sometimes when I'm doing lots of flower arrangement projects or if there's a lull in the flower blooming in my garden, I like to get flowers from other farms and gardens on Mayne Island. This week, I was lucky enough to get lots of beautiful roses, zinnias and sunflowers from Brian and Michelle at Raylia Farm. Here's their farmstand at the end of Montrose Road. So sweet. Lots of yummy veggies and beautiful flowers here.

A lovely little table centerpiece I made with some of their beautiful roses and some of my lady's mantle.

and I used those same roses, zinnias, grasses, grapevine and fennel flowers to create this wildly beautiful garden arrangement. What a joy.

can't stop admiring those amazing roses!

and here's a natural and untamed late summer arrangement with Raylia sunflowers and my grapevine, fennel, grasses....

wedding flowers

Today I did a few table arrangements and a bridal bouquet for a small intimate wedding at the Mayne Island Resort. It was a fun little job...sometimes the small ones are the most fun. The table arrangements were an island gardeny combination of beautiful Stargazer lilies, pink and reddy/orange roses, grasses, lady's mantle, grapevine, rosemary and lemon verbena sprigs and flowers, marigolds....

When making the bridal bouquet, I always like to hold it in the mirror to make sure that it looks the way I want it to when it's being held in hand. This bride requested a creamy white palette with touches of chartreuse and pink and she liked the idea of white roses...so this bouquet is made of white roses, pink roses, limelight hydrangea, golden hops vine, some feverfew and copper coloured grass sprigs.
A plate of grape vine, roses and hollyhock flowers waiting to be delivered to the Sunny Mayne Bakery for wedding cake decoration.