mangold wurzels

Need to know the best time to plant?

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bazza1979
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i watched victorian farm last night on bbc2 and they were growing mangold wurzels for the animals they were quite big and i wondered if they tasted good maybe something like swede? my gran said in the old days they made a cough mixture from them??
might be quite fun to grow them? :P
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alan refail
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Bazza

Have a look at this old thread
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bazza1979
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thanks for that, was sure people probably used them for more than just animal fodder!
WestHamRon
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To my tastebuds, they are very similar to beetroot. They need a bit more cooking.
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Geoff
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When I first ventured into rural Shropshire with my wife I remember her Aunt's Mother-in-Law feeding me a tumbler of Mangle wine, though there is a gap in my memory just after that. So if you don't like them you can ferment them!
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Colin_M
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There are 2 gallons of Mangel wine lurking under my stairs at the moment, waiting to be bottled. Probably more of a fire hazzard than any source of competition for Bordeaux though :(
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George Gray
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Last year I got some "Yellow Indeterminant Mangel" seed from the HDRA at Ryton and grew in the on the lotty. It was yellowish and the flavour was less sweet than beetroot but OK. I like the idea of making wine from them - presumably it works well because of the high sugar conetent.
Has anyone made a red wine from beetroot!!?
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Colin_M
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I'm happy to have a go George, if you can find any recommend recipes.

Guess it could go well accompanying a Cheese Ploughmans!!!
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George Gray
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How about a mangelwurzel curry! Now that would be interesting!
If you are a member of the HDRA the seed I bought is now in the catalogue for free seeds that they produce every year.
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alan refail
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If you are a member of the HDRA the seed I bought is now in the catalogue for free seeds that they produce every year.

Not exactly "free", George, I fear. They are in the Heritage Seed Library catalogue.

Membership of the HSL is £15 for Garden Organic Members, £20 for others. For this you are entitled to six small (e.g. 40 mangel seeds) packets of seeds of heritage varieties.

Mangel seeds are available from Tuckers - 1000 seeds for £1.40.
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garden_serf
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Aha! a source for Mangel seeds....many thanks Alan :)
Maybe a person's time would be as well spent raising food as raising money to buy food - Frank A. Clark.
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bazza1979
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i know its a pretty old post but thought i'd say i got some mangel "yellow eckendorf" from suffolk herbs

http://www.suffolkherbs.com/kolist/1/VE ... 0/V228.htm

looking forward to making some wine with them! :roll:
pongeroon
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My main recollection of mangels is hurting my toes when trying to kick them out of the frozen ground to feed the sheep with. The joys of being an agricultural student :?

That was about a hundred years ago and I'm sure they now use machines to do the kicking.
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Colin_M
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bazza1979 wrote:i know its a pretty old post but thought i'd say i got some mangel "yellow eckendorf" from suffolk herbs

looking forward to making some wine with them! :roll:

Hi Bazza - have you just got the seeds for growing this year, or did you actually get a crop last year?

I really like Mangel wine, though you have to wait quite a while before it's ready. In my limited Mangel growing experience, I've tried two main sorts:
- A yellow one, like the photo you supplied
- A red'ish one - here's an example:
Image

I have to say that the wine from the red one was much better than what I got from the yellow. However there were 2 years between the two crops and growing conditions may have been different.

If anyone can point me towards (or supply) some Red Mangel seed, I'd give it another go!
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bazza1979
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i've got the seeds for this year, it took me hours of searching the net for those yellow ones! :?
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