Parsnip tip

[Scottishnewbie]

As a relative 'newbie' to veg growing i feel a little cheeky offering advice but here goes anyway!

no-one told me parsnips were hard to grow this year

i did the germination on kitchen paper bit.....so far so good....then i had a wee brainwave!

i thought i'd make it easy for the nip to reach down so i used a dibber to make as deep a hole as i could and then filled the hole with compost and 'planted' my wee germinated seed on top and sprinkled some compost on top of it.

i dug up the first of my parsnips grown this way yesterday and it was easily 6 inches in diametre - fed 5 of us with some left over!

now i dont think i have any greener fingers than anyone else so i can only guess that making it easy for the 'nip to grow to start with must have helped!

checked some of the others and they are all huge....and we dont have especially good soil as yet.

hope this is useful for next year

[Shadylane]

Yeah I tried this with some of mine as recommended by lottie neighbour. Only trouble was I got fed up after about six - it's a bit of a pain, if you're sowing loads, but in your case sounds like it was worth it. 6 inches? Wow. Congrats

[Two_Sheds]

it works well for carrots too, (using MPC) esp. if your soil tends to cap/crust

[Scottishnewbie]

and there was me thinking i had come up with a good idea all on my own! i should have known better....

[grannymem]

Well, I found it very useful and will make the most of your post. Very many thanks - and keep posting, please

[snuffer]

If you find it a pain in the proverbials to make individual holes for each planting station use a spade to make a V shaped trench. Start at one end of the row and insert the spade as far down as you can get it. Rock the spade from side to side making a V shaped hole. Continue along the row in this fashion until you have the V shaped trench. Fill with multi-purpose compost and sow direct into this.

Result - good long roots with very little forking in them.

Works every time (well nearly).

[Shadylane]

and there was me thinking i had come up with a good idea all on my own! i should have known better....

Well it is a good idea and since you thought of it yourself without input then I'm sure you can take some credit for it. I'd certainly not heard of it until early this year

If you find it a pain in the proverbials to make individual holes for each planting station use a spade to make a V shaped trench. Start at one end of the row and insert the spade as far down as you can get it. Rock the spade from side to side making a V shaped hole. Continue along the row in this fashion until you have the V shaped trench. Fill with multi-purpose compost and sow direct into this.

Result - good long roots with very little forking in them.

Works every time (well nearly).

Yeah that's also not a bad idea - might try that. Besides the time it takes faffing about you save on peeling nice straight roots instead of crazy multi forked ones

[Littlemouse]

I'm glad to learn this tip. When I made my beds I bunged down a a layer of dead turves, newly dead so unrolled them and made a layer which I covered over and then broke up - should have broken these up better before I laid them down, as now find that am having to break through the fibrous mat of roots to get any deeper down into the beds...

Realise now I missed out the part of the process of making loam from old turves of letting then stand in a covered heap for a year or so.

6 inches in diameter sounds less of a turnip and more of a missile!

[Scottishnewbie]

[QUOTE=Littlemouse;547398]I'm glad to learn this tip. When I made my beds I bunged down a a layer of dead turves,QUOTE]

thanks littlemouse - but what are "turves" - i've never heard that word before?

[Scottishnewbie]

looked it up: turves /tɜːvz//tɝːvz/
UKplural of turf (GRASS)
now i know! thanks for that

[Two_Sheds]

and there was me thinking i had come up with a good idea all on my own!

as they say, there's nothing new under the sun. However, plenty of people hadn't heard of it, so your post was timely

[Scottishnewbie]

thanks TS. and yes you are right - nothing new under the sun (even though we feel quite clever when we think we've 'invented' something clever!!

[Joanne]

I dug up the first of my parsnips last week, not sure why but it was at least a handspan wide with about ten tendrils, we are still using it. I grew mine in cardboard tubes, but I guess the ground must have been compacted or lumpy.

[Eco-Chic]

...i did the germination on kitchen paper bit.....so far so good....then i had a wee brainwave!

i thought i'd make it easy for the nip to reach down so i used a dibber to make as deep a hole as i could and then filled the hole with compost and 'planted' my wee germinated seed on top and sprinkled some compost on top of it.

hope this is useful for next year

it works well for carrots too, (using MPC) esp. if your soil tends to cap/crust

Thanking you both. I lurve carrots and parsnips and I have heavyish soil which caps so this will be very helpful to me

[Littlemouse]

Re 'turves' I wasn't 100% sure it was a word but it seemed plausible.