As I mentioned in a previous post, I try to wait until I see the top of the carrot peeking out of the soil before harvesting it. This year, my attempts to grow some of the "Scarlet Nantes" variety by seed were hampered earlier in the summer when squash plants from a neighboring plot shaded them out. After the responsible gardener contained the leaves of those plants, the surviving carrots flourished. There are only about a half dozen, but that's a significant improvement over the "Long Imperator" variety that failed to come up last year. As you can see from this photo, (borrowing Hanna's practice of using a quarter for perspective), I think I should leave the remaining carrots in the soil for a little while longer.
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By coincidence I planted two rows of Scarlet Nantes also this year. The one planted first was badly damaged by carrot maggots (offspring of carrot flies, I think). The second batch escaped the worm, and some carrots are pretty good--although short, not long, which I think is generally true of the Nantes variety. Others are not fully grown. I dug up eight or nine last week for soup I was making. I think I will leave them in the ground until needed, giving some chance for the anemic ones to grow up.
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