Renemarie's Carrots
Daucus carota subsp. sativus

It’s been pouring down rain for days now and the garden is flooded. I discovered a crack in my Wellies when I was pulling carrots. The water is over my ankles between the rows. After I came inside and got out of my raingear and wet sock , I had to suit up again because I forgot the tarragon. I tried to send my son out for it but he didn’t “know for sure” which herb was the tarragon.

Some of my carrots have gotten carrot rust fly maggots. The infestation is localized to a couple of spots rather than throughout both rows. I’m pulling up in carrots in the affected areas so that the maggots don’t mature and spread. I KNEW I should’ve covered the rows with bug barrier but I just didn’t get around to it. First the turnips, now the carrots. Dang.

The carrots are average 6 inches long. We’ve been eating them for a couple weeks now. Ron gave a couple of large bagsful away to friends. We can barely keep up with the thinning. I may harvest a bunch for storage. Vera Marie gave me a great book on root cellaring.

The carrots have been weeded and thinned a little. They need to be thinned more. They are so close that it’s hard to pull up one without the one next to it coming up as well. I thinned a little as I was weeding and decided to wait a few days for them to grow a little more root before I thin again. Maybe if I water first, the damp clay soil will hold onto them better.