The carrots have germinated! You can see the tiny green seedlings, reaching their leaves up out of the soil. These were the first food-crop seeds we have planted, which made October 21 a quietly momentous day for CommonWealth Urban Farms. The carrot seeds will germinate and grow this fall, then grow more slowly over the short days of winter, and be ready for harvest in the spring. Cold weather changes the starches in carrots into sugars, so winter grown carrots are the sweetest. We watered daily; carrot seed is very picky about drying out and won’t germinate well unless it’s kept moist for the two week germination period. Because they are so slow, it is especially exciting when we finally see the little seedlings appearing out of the ground.