The Husband Carrot

An essay about the queerness of a girthy carrot

For gardening new-comers, like myself, carrots are usually the first to plant and last to harvest. Every year, I forget this simple law of nature when I help my friend L. plant her garden. Impatiently, when we harvest the cherry and Roma tomatoes in late July, I get the itch to take a peek under the soil, though carrots are root vegetables, doing so can hamper their progress.

The first time we harvested carrots, I was too giddy—well at least for the simple action of pulling a vegetable out of the ground. I remember the lead-up—L. was sitting on her chair on the porch you could see the whole street on (The Porch of Judgement, we’d call it) I came around the corner with my dog, and by the time I made it to the top step, L. says “It’s time.” 

The time was either late August or early September, kneeling, I remember the dirt was warm from the afternoon sun. I grasped the leafy green tops of the closest carrot to me and with both arms pulled it up. Bright orange and about as long as my middle finger to my wrist, I was baptised in its girth. “Damn, I think I want this carrot as my husband,” I told L. She looked at me and I looked at her and we both rolled over in the garden, busting at the seams—though I was careful not to snap my freshly plucked prize. The “Husband Carrot” sneaked its way into every one of our convos. Cylindrical vases found while thrifting were always compared to the first “Husband Carrot.” Carrots at the grocery store were especially compared to the first “Husband Carrot.” Men jogging in sweatpants past the “Porch of Judgment,” were, of course, compared to the first “Husband Carrot.” Even the next year, that year’s Husband Carrot was compared to the first “Husband Carrot.” 

But here, at that moment, like a straight man holding up a freshly caught fish, I displayed The Husband Carrot proudly in my tank top and jean shorts. I’d later use the photograph on my dating profiles, which garnered responses like: OOOH, he’s a gardener, Good with plants?, and my favorite, I love beets. L. would say, “The last one is a red flag, he doesn’t even know what beets look like.” 

My grandparents always had a garden, where the canning season came with its own weather advisory. My parents had a smaller garden, strawberries mostly, that would only get bigger the moment they moved out to the country. Before moving to Omaha, I was in college in Iowa City, followed by a brief stint in Chicago, where I rented and never felt fully established or had enough space to make a garden. (And looking back at these landlords, I can see them saying NO before I finished my sentence). 

Before helping L. with the garden, the last garden I ever thought about was the one in Fun Home by Allison Bechdel, having read it my senior year of college. Bechdel’s father a closeted gay man (spoiler alert) poured himself around his house, fiddling and perfecting the old home. He tended a garden in jean shorts and sometimes no top, manicuring his dirt of weeds and planting vegetables that would triple in size. The portrayal of Bechdel’s father highlights that projects (like a garden) can also be life in terms of the effort it takes to preserve your hard work.

Planting a garden is not glamorous work. It’s hard and it’s hot out and the gloves stick to your sweaty hands. But the lots of tomatoes, sunflower seeds, onions, chives, peppers, and green beans won’t grow and eat themselves. With gardening there is a certain non-physical gift, tilling up the dirt makes for good cardio, planting the seeds and tending to the vines help you track time throughout the season, but there’s something for making a space for yourself to be yourself. There’s a certain satisfaction of putting up a Pride flag in the garden and knowing that someone won’t fuck with it. At least for now. In states like Iowa and Nebraska and beyond in this US hellscape, frequent legislation makes it farther than it should be targeting queer people, and sometimes it’s hard to justify staying, knowing the passing of such homophobic laws will impact your mental health. But to fight, I’ve found, you need to tag out, take your time, replenish yourself, and make yourself whole again to get back on the frontlines. 

The next year, L. found an artisanal seed mix, featuring purple, yellow, and red carrots. We’d joke we were growing my future husband from seed like some gay fairytale. We pulled The Husband Carrot (version two) the same day we had to sex the corn (rubbing together the male and female parts). It's hard to forget such a gay-filled-gardening day. I gripped my hands around the leaves and thought for a moment, what if there isn’t a Husband Carrot this year? What if the first Husband Carrot was as best as it’s going to get? No, I say, and give it a great pull. Though the carrot crop was smaller than the year before, the purple, yellow, and red carrots dazzled in the sun once washed off with the hose. L. yelled “Taste the rainbow!”

I’d sit with L. on the porch—cooling down after grabbing a coffee—to discuss our personal lives and how small the dating pool of qualified candidates is in the Midwest. Smaller if you’re gay. The smallest still if you’re looking for someone working on their shit. Impossible it seems if you’re gay and working on their shit. We’d never reach any definitive conclusions only that coffee in good company followed by tinkering with the garden is the closest slice of heaven you can get to.

We were good at naming things too. We called the porch the “Porch of Judgement.” We called the garden “The Garden of Eatin,” riffing off its biblical inspiration. I called the dummy-thick root vegetable “The Husband Carrot,” and L. never forgot it. Growing up in the Midwest and now living in Omaha, I’m used to carving out space for my queerness to thrive. I just never pictured a garden, tended by a friend, would be such a place for me. 

I still call the garden with L. a home. 

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Harrison Cook is a writer and potter living in the Midwest. His work has appeared in Gay Mag, Foglifter Journal, Essay Daily, TriQuarterly Review, and elsewhere. His Essay “Atlas” was recognized as a notable essay in The Best American Essays 2021. 

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