My record parsnip!

[peanuts]

Three years ago, I think, we managed to dig up, unbroken, a parsnip 57cm long.  With our light clay soil, and being at the bottom of a valley, resulting in wet soil 30cm down, we usually mange to leave the last part of our parsnips in the ground, grrrrr!
Today we dug up successfully this one, and I reckon it is as good as 58 cm long!

[peanuts]

[goodlife]

 

[Nora42]

wow I'd be impressed with anything that doesn't look like a celeriac root.
well done
Nora

[peanuts]

I have to admit though that I struggle every now and again when we are in UK and if I want parsnips I have to buy them in the market, or a supermarket. They look so beautifully perfect and clean!  And are so easy to prepare. Now back home, I have a large container outside the kitchen door with a dozen parsnips soaking in water,  in varying states of random shapes and lengths, all thick with mud.  i can't buy them here, so I know I have to grow them, but oh it is so much easier to prepare them when they're grown in goodness knows what, certainly not muddy earth with worms!

Does anyone else feel the same sometimes?

[gray1720]

You'd never get one that long on my plot - about 30cm down you hit blue clay, once they get into that it's like the Enormous Turnip getting the d**n things out. Even my few in drainpipes struggle... I'm impressed!

This year I'm trying a variety from Chiltern Seeds that's supposed to grow like a beetroot. Assuming the bu**ers germinate, of course.

Adrian

[BarriedaleNick]

Does anyone else feel the same sometimes?

I did spend some of yesterday scrubbing a few snips for a stew - I am sure the amount of energy I spend on digging them out of the clay and cleaning them far outweighs the energy I get form them.
However they are one crop I love to grow so this year I have plans!!

[goodlife]

However they are one crop I love to grow so this year I have plans!!

That is a teaser....!
So, what have you planned?

[BarriedaleNick]

Well since you asked   

Nothing overly complicated but borrowing an idea from a mate who grows carrots like this sometimes.  I'm just going to do what is essentially a very thin raised bed about 18 inches off the soil - probably using the ubiquitous scaffold planks.  Then fill with leaves, old compost, sand and anything that isn't overly full of nutrients.  Allow to settle and top up.  The station sow my snips and hope for the best.  That way they should come out straight and I wont be wrestling with them to get out of the ground...

[goodlife]

Well since you asked   

Nothing overly complicated but borrowing an idea from a mate who grows carrots like this sometimes.  I'm just going to do what is essentially a very thin raised bed about 18 inches off the soil - probably using the ubiquitous scaffold planks.  Then fill with leaves, old compost, sand and anything that isn't overly full of nutrients.  Allow to settle and top up.  The station sow my snips and hope for the best.  That way they should come out straight and I wont be wrestling with them to get out of the ground...

Sounds good! Is that going to permanent bed or moveable raised frame/loose planks?
I'm going to do something similar, but it is for my asparagus. Their beds won't stay in mound formation..the soil want to run away in paths..so I'm forcing the mounds to stay up with planks...supposed it is going to be  a 'raised bed'

[BarriedaleNick]

Just a temp thing that I will move from year to year.  Parsnips seem to do much better out of the clay but I dont want to keep growing them in the same place each year..