Parsnip Tender and True
A large, robust and easy-to-grow parsnip that adapts to different climates.
About the variety. The Tender and True variety produces long, white, smooth-skinned roots with a narrow conical shape — similar to winter carrots in form and size, but with their own flavour and slightly less sweet. The leaves are also edible and highly aromatic.
Itinerário técnico
Um guia de cultivo passo a passo, da sementeira à colheita.
Always sow direct, one or two centimetres deep, and never transplant. The seed loses viability very quickly, so always use fresh seed from the current year. Germination is slow, two to four weeks, and demands a constantly moist surface. Sow from February to May in the north and from March to June in the south, so the root is formed when the cold arrives. Sow thickly and thin later to ten or fifteen centimetres. It has the longest cycle of the root crops, five to six months.
It wants very deep, loose, stone free soil with no fresh manure, at a pH between 6.0 and 7.0. The root can go down thirty centimetres, so work the ground deeply. Stones and clods give forked roots. In heavy soil, grow in a raised bed or make deep holes with a crowbar and fill them with sieved soil.
It is extremely cold hardy and it is frost itself that converts starch into sugar and gives it its characteristic flavour. It grows between 10 °C and 20 °C. In southern Europe it is an autumn and winter crop; in northern France and Germany it is a traditional crop left in the ground until January or February. On the Portuguese coast it grows through the whole winter without trouble. Inland in Portugal and Spain night frosts do it no harm, but through the hot, dry summer it needs regular watering or the root turns fibrous. In France and Germany it is sown in spring and lifted from autumn to late winter, and in a cold winter a layer of straw over the row stops the ground freezing and makes lifting easier. In Italy it is an autumn and winter crop in the centre and south, as in Portugal, and in the north it follows the French calendar, because it comes through the Po valley winter without trouble.
Do not use fresh manure or strong nitrogen feeding: that gives forked, hairy and tasteless roots. Use a bed that was composted for the previous crop and top up potassium only, with sieved wood ash, which improves sweetness and keeping quality.
Water regularly through the whole cycle, above all until germination and in the first weeks. Irregular watering splits the roots. Once established, a straw mulch greatly reduces water needs.
The crop germinates slowly and is completely overrun by weeds in the first weeks, which is the number one cause of failure. Prepare the bed in advance, clear the first flush of weeds before sowing and mark the row with radish, which comes up within days and shows you where to hoe. Hoe shallowly between the rows until the foliage closes over and covers the soil.
Carrot fly attacks this crop too, with the same brown tunnels in the root: cover with fine mesh sixty centimetres high and thin at the end of the day. The fly has two generations, in May and June and again in August and September: keep the mesh on until autumn. Aphids and soil beetle larvae are secondary. Take care with the leaf sap, which in sunlight can burn the skin: wear gloves and long sleeves when handling the crop on a sunny day.
Parsnip canker makes brown patches and rot at the crown of the root, above all in wet heavy soil: earth up over the crown and choose a well drained bed. This variety has good canker tolerance, but in a very wet winter it pays to lift the largest roots earlier and store them in sand. Alternaria and powdery mildew affect the leaves. Use a four year rotation away from carrot, parsley, celery and fennel.
Lift from autumn onwards, but wait for the first frost if you can, because that is what brings the sweetness. Lift with a fork, because the root is long and snaps easily if pulled. It keeps very well in the ground through winter and can be lifted as needed. The reference colour is white, and that is what tells you it is ready.
