I did some thinning of my sprouts over the weekend. For those of you who don’t garden and/or participate in genocides, thinning means you remove some sprouts in favor of others so that the stronger (and presumably tastier) plants might have more room to grow.
I hadn’t really planned on killing my newborn radish children so soon (on Mother’s Day, no less), but it turns out that I was overzealous in my planting. There were septuplets crowded together all over the place, elbowing each other in the ribs and competing for precious water and cow poop. It was clear that some of them had to go. Plus, that’s what the seed packets said to do, and what the hell do I know?
In some cases, it was easy to choose. I mercilessly plucked out the gnarly-looking ones and the pale ones. But, then, I started to feel guilty. After all, some pale, gnarly-looking babies turn out to be perfectly functional and happy citizens (as well as avid bloggers), and shouldn’t they be allowed to carry on?
I continued this ethical conversation with myself while I went inside to wash off a few sprouts and see if they might be at all tasty. Indeed, they were. Very, very tasty. (I think I might have finally figured out what “micro-greens” are). I rushed back outside and just started yanking out sprouts indiscriminately.
I hope there are still some left.
hahahaa!
Well I'm glad you found the sprouts were tasty! I can honestly say I've never committed this act on my garden, guess that explains why I had 2 miles of zucchini vines and only 2 zucchini to show for it last summer, eh? Oh no wait.. that was the f'n critter that ate EVERYTHING but the damn vines.
Posted by: Lisa | May 14, 2007 at 10:21 AM
TOTALLY microgreens. Cranky and I have been known to plant radish seeds specifically for the act of infanticide.
Posted by: cookiecrumb | May 14, 2007 at 07:00 PM
CC: It's funny how we throw ethics out the window for a good meal.
Lisa: I think that critter was me.
Posted by: Tammy | May 14, 2007 at 09:46 PM