Blimey that’s been in the ground a while....did you miss that earlier in the year?  Regards

David

Lovely i6 has now gone, but not me......

Please let me know if anything in my post offends you, as I may wish to offend you again......

Nope, that giant spud was definitely from this years crop.

Despite being attacked by caterpillars, my sprouts are doing fine now that the caterpillars are gone:



I'm having trouble with my parsnips though. The first lot of seeds, planted directly in the ground, didn’t germinate. Second lot, I started in a greenhouse in a shallow seed tray and just pinched them out with a plug of compost and transplanted that directly into the ground. They grew but apart from one of them, they’ve all come out like mutants! What could that be! Theses were the final 2 of that patch that I dug up today. Still tasted nice though.



I have one small bed of about 20 parsnips left now in a different part of the plot. The soil is better and these ones I grew a few weeks or more after the second lot and are my Christmas hopefuls. These, I started off in compost filled cardboard tubes. When the seedlings were big enough, I transplanted the whole tube into the ground. These have outgrown the earlier crop. Past: FL2 TD4 HSE Auto
Evoque SD4 Dynamic Lux Auto
Present: Audi A3 S Line.

Based on my allotment experience (but not expertise): you can get mutant parsnips and carrots if the soil is too rich, they generally prefer a light slightly sandy soil but parsnips can also do well in a fairly heavy soil with some clay in it. They don't like dry soil and this can cause mutants. I find that parsnips do better when sown directly where you want them to grow. Having said all that you can get good results anywhere depending on lady luck.

J