Tuesday, 26 August 2008
A closer look: Parsnips
Parsnips:
My dad:
One thing that was obvious despite my parsnips having a good 7 foot of room to grow down is that was no where near enough. The problem we had was they didnt have any where to go once they got to the bottom and the root didnt taper instead tried to force its way down even further. This resulted in lumpy ends, this is not due to the tail snapping off either as the pipes are lifted so the parsnips are not pulled, avoiding breaking any part of the parsnip. Despite this i only had to pull 6 parsnips to make a set of 4 with 5 being good and one with two tails right at the end. Next year I'm going to have to rethink as im pretty sure i could grow something very special but would require 9-10 foot of growing room. Despite the end of the parsnips they were pretty near perfect and I'm 100% sure i can grow them much longer than this and look forward to next years modifications.
My dad:
One thing that was obvious despite my parsnips having a good 7 foot of room to grow down is that was no where near enough. The problem we had was they didnt have any where to go once they got to the bottom and the root didnt taper instead tried to force its way down even further. This resulted in lumpy ends, this is not due to the tail snapping off either as the pipes are lifted so the parsnips are not pulled, avoiding breaking any part of the parsnip. Despite this i only had to pull 6 parsnips to make a set of 4 with 5 being good and one with two tails right at the end. Next year I'm going to have to rethink as im pretty sure i could grow something very special but would require 9-10 foot of growing room. Despite the end of the parsnips they were pretty near perfect and I'm 100% sure i can grow them much longer than this and look forward to next years modifications.
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2 comments:
Just been reading my GN about the death of Jack Arrowsmith the legendary Welsh parsnip grower.
He would apparently dig a trench at the bottom of his parsnip beds, lie on his back and ferret about in the subsoil extricating the very end of the parsnip.....seems a bloody lot of hard work does that! LOL
Haven't had time to get my GN yet. Thats a shame, that guy was such an asset and inspiration for many growers.
Getting parsnips in is easy, getting them out near impossible. I use to cut my pipes in half and tape them up then just open them when fully grown, but i found the moisture level was never quite right doing it that way. I almost broke my arm getting mine up with a chain on the pipes hanging myself from the poly tunnel roof lol..4 man job.
I may well use jacks technique next year in his memory.