MARVELOUS Mangel-Wurzels

While new scientific findings influence changes in farming and gardening every day, some traditional wisdom is just as useful as ever — especially when it comes to resurrecting a heritage plant with a dozen uses. Consider the mangel-wurzel, or “mangel,” one of our favorite crops.

This vegetable makes great salads, pickles, and cooked roots; is excellent feed for practically every kind of livestock on the farmstead; is easy to grow and produces huge harvests; and stores well all winter.

Historical Roots

Not long ago, mangels were a common crop on small farms across the United States. Also known as the “fodder beet,” “mangel beet,” or species, along with chard, table beets, and sugar beets. Agricultural historians believe that humans domesticated beetroot many centuries ago; mangel-wurzels were documented in European fields by the mid-16th century. Many cultivars were being grown in the United States by the late 19th century. But their popularity declined in the 20th century, when mechanization made harvesting grains easier than harvesting roots.