Recycling straw

Why do you need to mulch round the parsnips. The straw might keep some of the cold off them but they're very hardy and supposed to taste better after a frost anyway.

Personally I'd chop it up and compost it.

Oh ok then. I read in this months edition of one of the grow your own type magazines that imshould be mulching parsnips with straw.

I'm wondering Yana whether you may have had blight on your potato plants.

If you did the advice you were given might have been to help prevent the blight spores from laying dormant in the soil and causing problems next year. Burning the straw, in this case, is probably good advice.

No blight?
Then there's a range of things you could safely choose - mulch if you feel there's a need or on to the compost heap as others have suggested.

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When I can get it I use straw around strawberries (as do loads of people) and by the end of the season much of it has decayed adding to the general soil structure.

Admittedly I don't have the coldest weather down here in the southwest even in the harshest winters, but I find a loose mulch of a couple of inches will keep the top six inches or so from freezing up, making harvesting much easier in freezing weather. 

Frost = increased sweetness / better flavour

Straw won't hold blight over winter. A waste of good straw if you ask me - compost it or use it as mulch material next year. Up to you of course.

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I know the jury is out on whether spores can overwinter on things they have been in touch with - others suggest spores can only overwinter on contaminated potatoes so they have something to feed on.

My feeling is contaminated straw would be safe to compost as the spores have nothing to live on over winter.

Then again, with blight spores being mainly blown in and across the whole allotment, how would you know whether it was your last year's straw or composted leaves or blown in from outside.

I grew potatoes under straw this year, my plants got blight as did everyone else on our site. The straw will remain in place and rot down for the next crop which will be the onion tribe. I doubt that spores will transfer to the next potato bed as the straw will be mainly black and earthy by then.