Kitchen Garden Forum

I agree, Mike, food is for eating, not looking at or winning prizes with! As I said in my first posting, even the forked parsnips were perfectly edible, I just wondered why they had forked so badly this year.

Glallotments asked if some varieties were more prone to forking. Not sure of a proper answer, but i wonder if a shorter variety like Avonresister might be less prone to forking, as it has got less distance to push into the soil to hit all sorts of troubles.

I certainly don't grow for show, but thought I'd try the idea to get something which was easy to prepare for cooking. Try cleaning and scraping the twisted one - which is pretty typical of the ones grown normally. I think it is time well spent making the holes and filling them with compost (which didn't take long anyway) if I get nice smooth straight parsnips.

Sorry, PP, I didn't mean to rubbish your wish to grow straight parsnips. I prefer mine that way. The twisted ones I have to cut up first to clean them.

Another point is that I probably dig them up too late, when they are bigger than they need be.

I am so glad I read this thread. Last year all my parsnips and carrots looked like the one on the left in the picture! I wasn't going to bother growing them this year ... until I read this thread. Now I am very excited about having some great parsnips and carrots.

Tom - are you not a wee bit chilly in that pic you're using as your avatar?? (Don't tell me you just cracked the ice for your early morning dip and are preparing for a quick snow exfoliation)

Westi