Parsnips but not as you know them!

[Stan79]

How would you get them out of the waste pipe before planting?

The loo rolls just rot down. You have to get them planted before you see the white root poking out the bottom.

[Snow]

I'm planning on using rolls too, the longer ones from kitchen rolls.

[Kristen]

Longest parsnip last year was over 70cm

I'm curious as to how long folk generally want Parsnips? Obviously if showing then "as long as possible" but for the kitchen does it matter?

I find the long ones a major exercise to get out of the ground in Winter, and I'm quite happy with a root that stops at about the depth of the fork. The fiddly little root that goes down to the centre of the earth isn't any use to me in the kitchen.

Thats a good idea. In fact I might buy some 32mm or 40mm waste pipe, cut that into 0.5m lengths and give them a flying start before getting them outside \o/

Worth trying newspaper pots (roll a sheet of newspaper around an aerosol can). You can have any length you like then, and plant it out "whole" like loo roll pots.

I make a hole with a bulb planter and pop the newspaper pot & young parsnip plant in. I make the hole really deep, my newspaper pots are quite long, and I can back fill the hole a bit with some fine compost if I make it deeper than the pot is tall. That gets me most of the depth I need, and thus forking of roots is quite rare. They sometimes have monstrous diameters at the top though.

[Stan79]

As you are suggesting, length isn't everything. Girth is far more important when it comes to parsnips.

I too use a bulb planter. I like the sound of the newspaper pots. Do they hold themselves up well enough when watered?

[Kristen]

Do they hold themselves up well enough when watered?

More than you would probably expect, given that they are just paper. They need to sit in a tray of some sort - can't really move them around like rigid pots - and I use a gravel tray (holds about 50, but heavy to carry when full and recently watered!), and as it has no drainage holes I have to be careful that the "pots" are not sitting in water / for too long, otherwise the bottoms do disintegrate.

Tear off any newspaper showing above ground, after/during planting, otherwise it acts as a wick and dries out the paper underground. Same issue as with Peat pots etc.