Carrots, Parsnips

[djbriggs12]

Need some help please - this is my first time here.

This is the first year Ive ever grown vegetables. I built some high vegetable beds - about 3.5' high. I filled this with top soil, and used chicken manure to fertilise the soil a bit. I planted some potatoes, brussels, beetroot, carrots and parsnips. Everything has grown really well, apart from the carrots and parsnips.

I grew Early Nantes carrots and another variety who's name escapes me. And a very good parsnip variety.

The carrots have come out looking terrible. They have either been extremely stunted or have come out twisted and knarled looking. The Parsnips have been really fat and broad at the top, but only been around 4cm in length (and around 6cm wide!). They had a flat bottom and lots of little roots growing from the bottom of it.

I have no idea what I have done wrong, or how I can change this to have better results next year. Does anyone have any suggestions or ideas for me, please?

Thanks very much
Dave

[rustylady]

Hi Dave, welcome to the Vine.

I think the problem with your carrots and parsnips would be the addition of chicken manure. Root crops really don't like rich soil.

[veggiechicken]

Hi Dave and welcome from me too. Although you say your raised beds are 3.5' high, is that one of those planters on legs? What is the actual depth of soil in the bed. Carrots and parsnips need a lot of root room. Once they hit the bottom or side they start to misbehave. Here are some of mine that I grew in a plastic flower bucket this year - bit of a disaster really

[solway cropper]

Here's some of mine grown in a plastic flower bucket.


I grow 15-20 buckets of them a year which gives us all we need. I use a finely sieved potting mix with the addition of just a little BFB.

[veggiechicken]

You can go off some people you know ^^^^

[Vince G]

Probably a bit early for pulling up parsnips Dave. Leave them a couple of months more and they might improve.

[zazen999]

When you say planted, did you sow the carrots and parsnips as seed, or did you plant them as seedlings? If they were seedlings, then you will have found that they don't like being moved as the tap root, the main root, becomes the carrot or parsnip and needs to be straight from the start.,

[bretty666]

definately too early for pulling up your snips id say!dont they NEED a frost to sweeten them? sorry cant help with your carrots, mine didnt do anything my snips are looking great though, i bet them carrots were a bugger to peel vc

[Stan79]

I needed to thin two parsnips so pulled them a couple of weeks ago. Great crunch to them and they are huge!!! The frost will make them sweeter but they tasted pretty good already...

[leonmc0708]

In my experience a bag of sand is enough for carrots and parsnips

[solway cropper]

Do you lay the bag of sand flat on the ground or stand it upright

[leonmc0708]

Yeah sorry - I mean in terms of fertity of the soil


Sent from my iPhone using Grow Your Own Forum mobile app

[Two_Sheds]

used chicken manure to fertilise the soil a bit.

Yeah but ... it doesn't feed the soil. It adds a high dose of nitrogen, which is good for green growth (leaves). You don't want big leaves on root crops, you want roots

Chicken pellets are aggressively promoted as a superfood for vegetable growing, and they sure as hell make a lot of money from a waste product.

You need to improve your soil with homemade garden compost, and you feed the veg (not the soil) with fertilisers, if you need them. A lot of veggies will grow just fine without any additional feed (carrots, salad, parsnips don't need any feed at all: they will grow in sand), and more fertiliser is not better: excess of nitrogen goes into the groundwater and causes pollution

definately too early for pulling up your snips

I had a nice little crop in July, self-seeders.
I haven't found a frost to be necessary: in fact we don't usually get a frost until Feb here on the coast