A Swedish woman who lost her wedding ring 16 years ago was flabbergasted when she found it again, around a carrot growing in her garden, media reported Saturday.

[Photo/Agencies]

Lena Paahlsson had taken off the white gold ring before a Christmas baking session with her daughters in 1995, but it had disappeared from the kitchen counter where she placed it.

After looking everywhere, and even pulling up floorboards in the search, Paahlsson and her family, who live on a farm in northern Sweden, had given up on seeing the ring again, she told the Dagens Nyheter daily.

That was until October this year, when she was picking the last carrots in her garden and suddenly found one with her ring glimmering around it.

The family thinks the ring must have fallen into the sink back in 1995 and been mixed with potato peels that were composted or fed to the sheep, since all the soil in the garden comes from composted vegetables and sheep dung.

The ring no longer fits Paahlsson, but she told Dagens Nyheter she plans to have it enlarged.

"I had given up hope. Now that I have found the ring again ... I want to be able to use it," she said.