BY CAROL CONSTANTINE -

My patio container garden pots are looking rather bleak and woebegone this winter day, all except for one. That one is the half barrel that my DH used for his first experiments in gardening. He became very enthusiastic about natural foods after helping harvest and eating some heirloom tomatoes earlier this year. (Yes, I have saved seeds from those Mortgage Lifters!)   His first planting was a mixture of rainbow and Parisian ball carrots.

After slow growth week after week, the barrel with his experimental home-grown carrots was full of bright green, healthy, lacy foliage. He cautiously pulled up one plant. It was a tiny, perfectly formed orange carrot about one half inch long.

“Did you thin your carrots like we talked about?”

“Oh, yes! Well...sort of. Let's see if there are any more in the barrel.”

Fortunately we did harvest just enough carrots to have that night with dinner. I cooked them with a tiny bit of butter and some cinnamon. He declared that they were the tastiest carrots ever, and he is now looking through seed catalogs to plan another, more adventurous crop. I can hardly wait to see what comes up in that barrel next!