Parsnips
Parsnips are a great vegetable and quite popular at present. Parsnip may be roasted, boiled and made into a pure or boiled with carrots and mashed together.
Parsnip are a long growth cycle vegetable requiring most of the summer to grow in the garden to get to a good size. It then requires two or three frosts to help develop a more intense flavour.
Sowing fresh seed is the key to success which is why some gardeners save their own seed.
When the soil temperature is about 10C ( late spring early summer) ensure the soil where you are going to sow the seed is cultivated (or is naturally loosely crumbled) to a dept of about 30cm or more. Parsnip are a deeply tap rooted plant.
As parsnips are a root crop do not add fertiliser or compost to the soil as this causes forked roots and large leafy growth with a small root.
Put down a line and make a shallow trench about 2cm deep along the length or row the seed is to be sown in.
Sow your fresh seed along the row at about 1 cm intervals as there will be some seed that will not germinate. Cover them with a this layer of soil and use the back of a rake to firm the soil around the seed. Water well and keep moist.
When the seed germinates and comes up keep watering and once two true leaves have appeared thin them out to about 3cm spacing.
Once they have grown well and leaves are entangling with the next plant thin out again to about 10cm apart. Some of these thinnings may be big enough to use.
Water well to keep them growing. Apply a mulch of fine compost to protect the soil from drying out and to provide some nutrients for the parsnips as they grow and mature.
After two or three frosts start digging the first parsnips for eating.
Pests.
The biggest pest will be Carrot fly rust larvae which hatch from eggs laid in the soil and these larvar will eat the parsnip and carrot roots. An insect mesh cover will help prevent the laying of eggs by adults. Also it is suggested by some planting a strongly aromatic plant like garlic, rosemary or similar will disguise the small of the parsnips and the adult will o lay eggs here.
Carrot Fly Rust is a small black and yellow fly that lays eggs on the tops of carrots. Maggots which hatch from the eggs crawl down and eat the root leaving rusty brown tunnels in the flesh making them worthless. Prevention is the best cure. Sow in ground that has not been used for two years for carrots or parsnips. When thinning do not leave the thinnings sitting on the soil surface to rot and attract the flies and make sure that the ground is weed free thus removing a habitat for the flies.
Parsnip are a long growth cycle vegetable requiring most of the summer to grow in the garden to get to a good size. It then requires two or three frosts to help develop a more intense flavour.
Sowing fresh seed is the key to success which is why some gardeners save their own seed.
When the soil temperature is about 10C ( late spring early summer) ensure the soil where you are going to sow the seed is cultivated (or is naturally loosely crumbled) to a dept of about 30cm or more. Parsnip are a deeply tap rooted plant.
As parsnips are a root crop do not add fertiliser or compost to the soil as this causes forked roots and large leafy growth with a small root.
Put down a line and make a shallow trench about 2cm deep along the length or row the seed is to be sown in.
Sow your fresh seed along the row at about 1 cm intervals as there will be some seed that will not germinate. Cover them with a this layer of soil and use the back of a rake to firm the soil around the seed. Water well and keep moist.
When the seed germinates and comes up keep watering and once two true leaves have appeared thin them out to about 3cm spacing.
Once they have grown well and leaves are entangling with the next plant thin out again to about 10cm apart. Some of these thinnings may be big enough to use.
Water well to keep them growing. Apply a mulch of fine compost to protect the soil from drying out and to provide some nutrients for the parsnips as they grow and mature.
After two or three frosts start digging the first parsnips for eating.
Pests.
The biggest pest will be Carrot fly rust larvae which hatch from eggs laid in the soil and these larvar will eat the parsnip and carrot roots. An insect mesh cover will help prevent the laying of eggs by adults. Also it is suggested by some planting a strongly aromatic plant like garlic, rosemary or similar will disguise the small of the parsnips and the adult will o lay eggs here.
Carrot Fly Rust is a small black and yellow fly that lays eggs on the tops of carrots. Maggots which hatch from the eggs crawl down and eat the root leaving rusty brown tunnels in the flesh making them worthless. Prevention is the best cure. Sow in ground that has not been used for two years for carrots or parsnips. When thinning do not leave the thinnings sitting on the soil surface to rot and attract the flies and make sure that the ground is weed free thus removing a habitat for the flies.