[shaneyplane]

hi guys, im looking at putting in some veg ready for Christmas dinner, am i being daft thinking they will grow as somebody has told me onions, parsnips and potatos put in now will be ready for Shhh... dinner, and they have told me parsnips are better in cold wet ground, is this true or are they telling me rot lol

[Yorkie]

It's too late now to put anything in for that date (it's a forum in-joke that we don't mention the festival of 25 Dec until December, and the auto-edit software has been set to make sure that happens  )

Parsnips are started off in March-April, and are harvested ideally after the first frost until the New Year-ish (depending on variety).

Onions go in early in the year for harvesting late summer and storing thereafter.

It is true that spuds can be grown for that time, but it's rather too late now, and they need to be under cover by about now anyway to avoid the risk of frost.  Those people on here who have experimented with spuds for winter, have said they won't repeat it in future years.

[shaneyplane]

cool, that will expain the shhh lol, and i was thinking it was to late but a guy at work was insistant that they would be fine, so i just wanted to double check, thanks for the info, wont wast my money and time now will put the money into the sorting the gutter and down pipe for my water butt

[Yorkie]

Yep, that sounds a better plan.

NB, you will see reference to autumn sown onions which can be sown now - but these are not ready for harvest until early summer.