Ugly veg? Who cares.

                          

Octoparsnips

I just dug up, this afternoon, the first of this years parsnips. As with the carrots, it was an experiment. Only this time I'm rather pleased with the results. In my five years on the plot, I have never had any real success with any of my root vegetables. If you've read one of my previous post on my carrot crop, the parsnips are bigger by far and even digging them up, the sweet smell of the parsnips seemed to fill the air. They are certainly not the kind of vegetables you would find in the supermarket, but they are the best, sweetest, roasted parsnips I've had. It makes you wonder if the supermarkets have got it so wrong. As Joni Mitchell said 'I don't care about spots on my apples, leave me the birds and the bees, please!'. I have re-named my parsnips as octoparsnips, I just need to get to myself to the patent office.

My experiment was to start off the seeds in my greenhouse at home in some newspaper pots I had made, then when the seedlings got to about three or four inches, I transplanted them to the allotment, paper pot and all, so as not to disturb the root at all. I had tried it before in the past in modules, but only a few worked after transplanting, too many fell apart as I tried to plant them.  

                                                     

My Japanese onions are doing very well at the moment. Some have sprouted up about three inches tall. Nothing with the Red onions as yet, but they'll be in the soil for nine months so plenty of time I guess. And even though the strawberries won't ripen, they are still trying their best to fruit.

Never say die strawberry.