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I pulled up my first carrots on Monday and by yesterday they had gone soft and bendy. Is this a sign that they weren't ready?

most likely cause short of water

I am pretty sure the carrot grown for the supermarkets go straight into a cold store therefore lose moisture at a slower rate, try putting them in a zip up bag then into the fridge salad drawer.

Did you leave the tops on?  Cutting them off is supposed to help because they'll carry on trying to grow and draining water from the root.  I don't know how they manage to keep them firm and sell them as 'bunching' carrots at markets mind you - may be they're chilled.

I had floppy carrots once.  I think it might be down to the variety because they've never done it since.  It was D'Eysines Carrot from Realseeds. 

But then I was surprised to read on another forum at the time because I was trying to find out why that even seasoned growers expected bendy ones and they dunked them in a bucket of water before using them.  All of the bendies seemed to be early spring types not later ones, but I may be jumping to conclusions.

I found that if you water them a day before you want to lift them this firms them up enough to save in the larder for a few days.
I remember the folks from where my dads lottie years ago did this and it is still good today.