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  • Amateur Gardening

    Focus on…Parsnips

    Dec 07, 2021 5 minutes

    Next week: Focus on blueberries, replace glasshouse soil, check your soil pH, take root cuttings, try cranberries.

    PARSNIPS are a must-grow vegetable in the winter garden. Puréed, casseroled, chipped or roasted, they keep us fuelled in these chillier months – but how can you ensure success on the plot

    Being biennial, parsnips are geared towards creating a sizable root in their first year, ready to flower the next. With parsnips taking well over 30 weeks to mature, this is a long-haul crop. Like their carrot relatives, parsnips are slow to germinate. Caused partly by irregular seed maturity leading to immature seed embryos, it’s unsurprising that suppliers legally need to sell us seed with only a 65% germination rate.

    Cold soils also hinder germination; at 7°C/45°F, parsnips can take four weeks to

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