I am eating a carrot from my garden raw with some hummus.

Growing the carrots has been very rewarding in terms of getting a good yield for very little effort but until now I was wondering if they warranted any more space in the garden next year. I had been led to believe that you haven't really tasted a carrot until you taste a homegrown one, but I have to admit that although my own carrots are certainly tasty I would be hard pushed to tell them from supermarket carrots in a blind test.

But now I know that's only when they're cooked. Raw, you can tell the difference alright: only a carrot fresh from the earth could have that crunch and juiciness!

So now I'm pretty confident about devoting a large patch of ground to carrots next year and am looking forward to trying several varieties. And if they all taste the same I really won't mind as long as I can eat them straight from the garden.