PARSNIPS BY THE YARD!

Press, Volume C, Issue 29643, 13 October 1961, Page 8

PARSNIPS BY THE YARD!

Have you ever stood and admired the long shapely parsnips sometimes seen on the show bench? They do not come by chance—there is work involved! One of the tricks of the experienced grower of vegetables for exhibition is to grow his parsnips in boreholes. It is a method which is particularly suitable on stiff and unworkable soils. Take a crowbar and punch it into the ground where your parsnip row is going to be. Then work it in a circle to produce a hollow cone. Take out the crowbar and repeat the process several times, so that the hole is eventually driven about three,

feet deep, end is six inches or so across the top. The hole is now filled with good quality soil—the nice friable sort you would use for potting plants or pricking-off seedlings—and firmed by tamping with the handle of a broom as the hole is filled. Four or five seeds are sown to each hole and then thinned to one plant when they germinate. The good soil in the borehole will encourage the vigorous growth of the taproot downwards, producing that beautiful long root, whilst the firm pressure on the developing root, due to the method of preparation of the hole gives a nicely textured skin to the parsnip.