Finally some success with carrots

After years of battling poor germination and seed pooling only to harvest misshapen, dinky carrots, this year I've finally seen some success! That zucchini is 8" for reference. This was my method, in case it might help others:

1. I planted in a large, deep container (a large plastic tote, but a five gallon bucket would work great), and mixed sand into the soil. I might have added some phosphorus, but not 100% on that. I usually use it for potatoes.

2. I saved a cup of the sand and mixed all my remaining carrot seeds into it, most of which were getting old. I wanted to use them up this year. Then I put this into a mason jar with an old Parmesan cheese lid on it. I planted the seeds by shaking the mixture onto the already watered soil then pressed it down firmly. This spaced them out well, and pre-watering ensured the seeds wouldn't get washed into low points.

3. I put a piece of cardboard over the seeds for a week or so to keep the seeds from drying out. I checked every day until I saw sprouts, then removed the cardboard.

Then I pretty much ignored them for a few months, besides a little bit if thinning. Next year I'll probably put fewer seeds in the sand mixture and thin more.

There are about twice as many carrots still growing, but they were small yet, so I'll probably (hopefully?) get a couple more harvests like this.

The smaller carrots pictured were pulled accidentally while pulling the bigger ones.