Gnarly Carrots

My carrots won't be winning any prizes at the county fair. They're all gnarly and twisted, and I probably should have harvested them a month or two ago.

I've never successfully grown carrots from seeds. Every year, some little critter eats the tender shoots as they emerge from the ground, and the whole project is lost before it's begun. This year I started carrots in 4" pots indoors sometime in February. As the weather warmed, the little pots of seedlings moved to the greenhouse. Finally the carrots were transplanted in bunches to raised beds, where they were interplanted between the tomatoes as companion plants.

Perhaps I should have thinned the crop to avoid the gnarly mass of carrots that I'm pulling up this week. Truthfully, I don't mind. I'm happy to have carrots for soups and stews. I trim the tops, wash the carrots and store them in the root cellar. So far I've harvested about 15 pounds of gnarly carrots, and there is plenty more in the gardens. All is well.