Sunday was cloudy and cold with the cloud thick enough to give some light drizzle at times.
Whilst we were digging up some carrots on the plot on Saturday we decided to test out a few parsnips. We’re never sure how our parsnips will turn out as excellent looking green tops are no guarantee of good roots.
This year we've only grown one variety of parsnip which is Gladiator. I've tried a couple of other varieties in recent years but none had performed anything like as good as Gladiator so this year all our parsnips are in one basket.
It normally produces some decent sized roots and as it states it seems to have some resistance to canker but I don’t expect all the roots to be canker free. It’s the first time we've grown parsnips using weed control fabric which has reduced weeding around the parsnips to a minimum. It does make harvesting crops a bit more of a challenge as I don’t want to damage the fabric any more than necessary so that it can be reused as many times as possible.
These are the three roots lifted and a bit of a mixed result. The first root lifted was the one at the top of the picture which was a decent and canker free root, then the root in the middle is a much bulkier root but with some canker damage and finally the root that had forked into two again with a little bit of canker. All the roots will produce a reasonable amount of edible parsnip so the taste test will follow to see if the roots have sweetened up enough.
After the lifting such giant carrots these parsnips were a little disappointing but I'm hoping what they may lack in appearance will be made up for by the taste.
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Well, I hope they tasted good! This reinforces the view that looks are not as important as taste. Take the skins off those parsnips of yours and you probably find some really nice flesh.
ReplyDeleteYou were right Mark. The damage was only skin deep and the parsnips tasted great.
DeleteMy carrots also get branching, but it have good taste. The shape is really bad, not interesting.
ReplyDeleteWe're not at all bothered by the shape Endah provided they taste good.
DeleteI love parsnips, so much more than carrots. I think I might try growing them next year, although I've heard they're tricky.
ReplyDeleteI don't know if tricky is the right word. Essential to use fresh seed each year and they are very slow to germinate. Many seed catalogues suggest sowing seeds in February and up to April. In a normal spring and in our ground the seed would just rot rather than germinate. Just a waste of time and money. Our parsnips this year were sown on 20th April and had germinated by 17th May. As you can see from post they've done okay.
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