@JellyB, carrots prefer sandy soil, that might have been part of your problem, or perhaps you had infertile seeds. Carrots are tricky.
I grow things because I simply like gardening, I don’t care if it is tomatoes or flowers, I just like to feel the dirt under my fingers and to watch things grow. I also do experiments with gibberellic acid, just to see what it does to my plants. Last year I put it on a very small hosta, and it caused the plant to put out dozens of tiny leaves, which isn’t what it was supposed to do. It was supposed to put out about four to six medium to large leaves.