Kitchen Garden Forum

Although the previous replies, including my own(!) have said to leave them in the ground and lift as necessary, doing this hasn't really worked that well for me these past 2 or 3 years as they get attacked by slugs and are likely to rot from underneath. So my wife wants me to lift them before the weather gets bad. They are already a good size despite caterpillar damage but I don't really want to lift them yet as we won't be using them until at least October. Any thoughts?

Peel, chunk, blanch, bag & freeze?

I have good years & bad years with leaving them in, but read that if you feed them loads they will never complain & grow bigger. This is my tactic for this year, the big ones still get chomped a bit by the slugs but enough left to chop the attack bit off & still have a pretty big bit of swede left. We will see, but I'm pretty impressed with their current size & could have afforded to grow them further apart which is an unknown as never been so big! And not growing animal feed varieties but Marian as have club root on the plot.

Could you dig up just a few, wash and prepare them as they're sold in supermarkets, wrap tightly in cling film to eliminate all air and store in a cool shed or garage?