sowing between parsnips

[roosky]

All the advice seems to say plant radishes in between groups of parsnips, while they germinate and to mark the rows. We don't like radishes ! would rocket, or another lettuce, do instead ?

[Alison]

Rocket or any cut and come again lettuce should work but I find you often end up disturbing the young parsnips when you pull up any inbetweeners so make sure you're careful and stick to quick germinating / growing things.

[gojiberry]

I don't risk anything around parsnips as any disturbance can cause forked roots. This years crop is looking good and some thinnings were over a foot long.

Ian

[roosky]

This may seem a silly question, but I haven't grown parsnips before. Can you eat the thinnings raw, or do you have to cook them ?

[Aberdeenplotter]

the idea is to grow something that will be harvested and out of the way so that it will not disturb the parsnips as they grow. I've never timed lettuce but they do take longer than radishes

[mrbadexample]

"You can use small lettuces if stations at least 18cm / 7in apart"

Grow Your Own Vegetables ~ Joy Larkcom

[endymion]

This site suggests

You can plant garlic and onions, which repel slugs and aphids. Bush beans, peas, radish and potatoes are also great companion plants with parsnips.

As a guess I'd think that if you can harvest something by cutting it off rather than digging it up it might work okay, and there's no reason why you can't cut off lettuce rather than pulling them. You can only try it, and learn from what happens. If it's a failure then you won't do it again, but if it's a success then you'll have learned something useful.

I'm a great fan of companion planting and interplanting, and for a long time we grew all our vegetables in amongst flowers, but this year we've got a patch for veg to grow all on their own, and it's crammed full. Maybe we'll get slightly smaller crops, but sometimes the smaller ones have the best taste. If it doesn't work then for next season we'll have to lose some more lawn.

[roosky]

Thanks everyone for all the suggestions - this site is such a great help to a novice !

[chris]

I've sown some lettuce near mine, but well away - they're very large now - but were sown on the 23rd of March - which is about right in terms of size. I think faster maturing crops are needed such as normal radish etc.

In terms of garlic and onions repelling slugs, I'd have to disagree seeing as mine have been munched by them

[endymion]

In terms of garlic and onions repelling slugs, I'd have to disagree seeing as mine have been munched by them

Same here, but I felt a bit awkward disagreeing with the website I quoted - and I thought it might have just been that our slugs were a bit greedy.