Root veg issue

[Darwin.]

No, not carrots, I've never bought them, just planted them and they ended up twisted and tiny. Everything else I bought in containers.

[SeedlingStudent]

So you didn't follow the instructions?

They all said to plant in march, thought 2 weeks wouldn't make much of a difference


I'm not to bothered about them being perfectly straight, any that are not useable in the kitchen will go to the horses, they're not fussy.

[Nes]

Why are humourous shapes not useful for the kitchen? My parsnips are only very rarely straight, mostly having several twisted tap roots per plant (stony soil). I cut them up, clean them up and have lovely roasted snips every time. Carrots the same. You can always soup them if you like your veggies to be pretty.

[redser]

I chitted and then started off my parsnips in loo rolls last year and it worked out great. Every single one grew on and was huge.
So over the weekend I prepared 50 loo rolls of compost and I'm doing the same with carrots this year. I'm not chitting them though, I sprinkled 3 or 4 seeds onto each tube and will thin them out to one. In addition to these main crops which I hope to grow on to a large size I'll be successionally sowing large pots of early nantes and amsterdam forcing for baby and small carrots. If it goes like the parsnoips last year I should be self-sufficient all year round.

[Two_Sheds]

They all said to plant in march, thought 2 weeks wouldn't make much of a difference

That's a general guideline, but you still need to be aware of the weather/temperature: if you think about it, March in Aberdeen and March in Devon are going to have totally different temperatures.

Last year's March was roasting, this year it's still really chilly.

Why are humourous shapes not useful for the kitchen?

They're a problem if soil has got into all the twists and turns, and the roots are impossible to clean.

My soil is fairly light, so this isn't a problem for me: sandy soil just washes off

[salome2001]

Loo rolls are your friend. start saving them now.
I planted carrots and parsnips in them last year and they worked fine. Wouldn't bother again with the carrots but the parsnips did fantastic (just pulled the last of them up today and three of them are 9cm across the top and over 30cm long) the advantage of doing parsnips in them is the variable germination: only plant out healthy seedlings. Plant out the whole tube and let it biodegrade.
I also started beetroot in regular modules and got good results there too.

[ugley_matt]

With the loo roll when do you plant out? when the tap root hits the bottom?

[Bren In Pots]

Matt i plant my loo roll parsnips as soon as I see a bit of green emerging above the soil any later you'll end up with scary looks roots.

[Two_Sheds]

With the loo roll when do you plant out? when the tap root hits the bottom?

No, before that. Otherwise you'll get forking and splitting.

[Nes]

They're a problem if soil has got into all the twists and turns, and the roots are impossible to clean.

Cut off the smallest unusable bits and compost them. Cut off the twisted better sized roots and clean with a brush and water or a pair of those potato cleaning gloves. Clean up the big bit left in the middle with brush / gloves. Cook as normal. Where's the difficulty in that?
People are so used to seeing perfect veggies in the shops that they forget that as long as it's food, it doesn't really matter what it looks like.

[veggiechicken]

If there's a simple way of avoiding twisted roots, why not take it? That way there are no small unusable bits to cut off and compost.

[Two_Sheds]

Cut off the smallest unusable bits and compost them. Cut off the twisted better sized roots and clean with a brush and water

Thanks for the lesson, but I learned how to wash veg when I was knee high to a hedgehog

People are so used to seeing perfect veggies in the shops that they forget that as long as it's food, it doesn't really matter what it looks like

"people" have been growing their own carrots for 20+ years now.
When you're digging up 100 at a time, there are better things to be doing than cutting & peeling & scrubbing & brushing mangled roots.

That's why I grow straight carrots, not fanged ones

[Nes]

No offense meant. I haven't meant to try to teach you personally how to wash your veg, it's just that there's a lot of people on this forum who grow smaller amounts of veg, not perfectly, who might be tempted to chuck their imperfect veg away because it's been called unusable by experienced gardeners. Sure, if you can improve the conditions and grow lovely carrots, great. Just don't throw less than perfect ones away (unless it's towards me - donations of free veg happily received!) for no good reason.

[veggiechicken]

I don't think oddly shaped veg are considered unusable by anyone who grows them by the sweat of their brow. Its the supermarkets that are to blame for brainwashing shoppers into thinking that anything edible has to conform to their size and shape standards.
I lurve veg with character

[SarzWix]

Since I broke my ankle a few years ago, and had to sow my carrots from a chair, my method is much less regimented. I chuck all my spent compost on the bed from the previous year's potato pots, rake it, then broadcast the seed over the whole bed, chuck some more compost over it, cover with Enviromesh and leave it. I get a mixture of really good carrots and less than perfect ones. As long as they're cleanable they get eaten, but there are always some that are more faff than they're worth, with a dozen twisted bits and by the time they're sorted you would have less than a mouthful. They get composted!