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Growing asparagus (parsnip)
Kevin Markland wrote:
As an aside are there any must haves that are vastly better when eaten fresh from the garden? We only have a small plot about 30 feet by 15 feet so it has to work quite hard. We've been very successful with courgettes/marrows over the past couple of years (cheaper and sweeter than in the shops) and we're going to try a couple of the more unusual squashes this time. (Anyone know whether the growing season in Glasgow would be likely to be long enough for Turk's Turban?) Runner beans, as others have mentioned, are well worth it, very productive and easy, and (since the shops tend to go for size rather than tenderness), much tastier and cheaper. And we've just set a couple of artichokes going, so soon we should be able to eat those. Last night we ate a wonderfully sweet parsnip and a cabbage with our roast. Growing a small variety of cabbage (we used Minicole F1) close together really works, as you get just the right amount for one meal on one head (again, the shops go for size rather than taste, and you end up using the same cabbage for six meals). And the parsnip... well, there's a bit of a story behind the parsnip. It's the only one we had. We actually sowed them *last* year, along with some carrots. We spent ages preparing the soil, sifting the (large number of) stones out and adding sand. Only a few came up, and eventually they all died. I blame the rain; I think they got waterlogged (we have very clayey soil, and it was a very wet year). We decided carrots and parsnips were not the way to go. This year we were surprised to see a baby parsnip making its way through the broad beans we'd planted in the same bed (I don't recommend broads in a small garden, by the way; they didn't produce that well and all got rust). We decided to leave it and see what became of it. The leaves got huge. When I finally dug it up last night (and it took a garden fork to do it), it was huge (about 3" across the top and about a foot and a half long) and had three major legs and several minor ones. And it tasted wonderful. Rhiannon |
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