Manure and Root Veg

I must admit that I manure my root veg beds every year with a lot of chicken manure, working it into the soil, and I get lovely straight roots. The parsnips grew so long that I could barely pull them out of my clay soil. I personally don't mulch or top dress root crops with manure or compost, but I've learned that I get better results by hilling them up slightly as I would with potatoes. Beets, onions, carrots, parsnips seem to thrive better and have fewer carrot fly problems. But in the UK I think enviromesh is still the best defense against carrot fly.

It's not always a matter of whether or not you manure your soil, it's more a matter of how much rubble, particularly small stones, you have in your soil. Once a root comes close to even a small pebble, it will fork around it. In a previous garden I went to the trouble of putting the root row through a sieve and was amazed at how many stones I gathered. Amazed because I thought the row stone free. After that, the carrots and such were fine.

If you can't manage to sieve your soil, then growing root crops in large pots, etc might be a better way for you. Also, carrots really do need some regular water to do well and being stingy isn't always good. Another potential problem could be the alkalinity of your tap water, so if possible try to use neutral rain water.

And it just occurred to me re your parsnips - are you direct seeding them or transplanting? If transplanting, then you're guaranteed to grow gloves. Even a bit of root jiggling in eg. paper pots will cause forking. I always direct seed mine as early as possible then put fleece over the seeded area against frost. By the time all frost is past, the tops are up and fleece comes off. Any empty spots are quickly reseeded and topped with a bit of straw to keep birds off.

...my Parsnips have come up looking like gloves nonetheless - as they do every year (whether I have made planting holes, or not ...)

What methods do you recommend?

did you sow direct into the soil or transplant them? I chitted an old packet of parsnips and was delighted with the germination rate and the lush growth, but they're coming up like Dali's veg plot, due to the damage to the baby root system

They do not require much feeding. Land that has been composted or manured for a previous crop is preferred.

So yes, they're benefiting from crop rotation.

Next year's will be going in where the courgettes & marrows were this year

I have decided that they were in the roottrainers for too long which damaged the root and casued it to fork and grow in circles

Personally I wouldn't grow them in anything so restrictive, even for a short time - and there are plenty who will say not to transplant them at all.

The newspaper pots I use are 6" - 7" deep, and I plant out as soon as the first true leaf appears (i.e. the plants are tiny!!), from previous experience if I leave them any longer the tap root will already out of the bottom of the "pots"

Quote from: purplebean on December 30, 2010, 12:44

I have decided that they were in the roottrainers for too long which damaged the root and casued it to fork and grow in circles

Personally I wouldn't grow them in anything so restrictive, even for a short time - and there are plenty who will say not to transplant them at all.

The newspaper pots I use are 6" - 7" deep, and I plant out as soon as the first true leaf appears (i.e. the plants are tiny!!), from previous experience if I leave them any longer the tap root will already out of the bottom of the "pots"

It was the first time I have ever grown parsnips, I won't make the same mistake next year  :happy: