A little squiggly and a whole lot interesting. Super fun for kids to grow! Every year we have our staple crops like tomatoes, beans, eggplant, peppers, basil, and parsley to name a few. But to make it really fun we always add one new crop each year, something we’ve never tried to grow before. It’s our experimental crop to see how we do with it (or rather how it does with us). This year it was carrots. They’re soooo fun, because they do all their growing underground. It’s not like watching a tomato plant grow, discovering it's first tiny yellow flower, watching it grow into a small green fruit, then ripen into a red juicy tomato. Nope, carrots are full of mystery. You plant them, water them, and simply give them the time they need to grow hidden in the dirt (generally 55-60 days depending on the variety). You see their stems growing taller above the soil, but the rest is a big secret. The anticipation’s the best part, because you never quite know what you’re going to get as you pull them up from the soil. Drew and I giggled so hard when we pulled these guys up. I don’t know about you, but I’ve never seen a squiggly carrot like this. So what happened? Well, it's a simple answer, and proof we're not experts gardeners. Our raised garden bed at the time was only about 8 inches, and the depth of the soil was even less. Carrots grow down into the ground. When these guys reached the bottom of the bed, they had nowhere else to go, causing them to squish and squiggle the way they did. It didn’t matter, though. They were some of the sweetest tasting carrots we’ve had, and we’ll definitely grow them again.
