Kevin & The Giant Parsnip!
I went out to the allotment yesterday for my first visit in over a week, Kathryn had been up a few times to keep things in order and continue harvesting.I noticed a clump of large leaves and decided to pull a parsnip.
Pulling made no impact so I loosened some of the surrounding earth with my fingers, thought this is more like a turnip size than a parsnip and got a small hand trowel. This proved as useless but I did see that this was no ordinary parsnip!
The large digging fork was brought into loosen more earth and finally the spade, by this time I had a fairly large hole excavated but there was no move from the parsnip!Short of bringing in a mechanical digger and disturbing the remainder of the plants,I pulled and tugged and eventually it broke off leaving I would think a fairly sizable chunk in the hole. The parsnip won the tussle as I ended up on my bum on the ground.
I did take some photos of the parsnip in the hole but I must have inadvertently moved the settings on my camera and they were very over exposed.
I weighed the monster minus the leaves and it is 4 1/2 lbs weight!it remains to be seen if it is edible.
The only good photo in the camera since yesterday is of the entrance to our allotments,nasturtiums cascading over a plot.
I cleared all of the sweetcorn, another 12 cobs which makes nearly 30 in all so it was one of the success stories this year.
I had about 6 more quite large strawberries eaten in situ.
More tomatoes were ripe,there was about 4 lbs and there are still some on the vines. I did clear the grow bag of 3 plants and will put in some winter salad instead rather than discarding it completely.
Carrots and a few normal sized parsnips, plus some cooking apples from Zwena and I had a nice haul coming home!
I finally put the Goji Berry bushes in place beside the shed and did some other general clearing and tidying for the winter.
Comments
I've had to resort to buying beetroot, mine haven't done very well at all, they are tiny. Did you grow beetroot?
Jo, I don't know yet if it is edible! It is usually the same as a good sized carrot,cooked andused the same. It has a sweeter taste and carrot & parsnip cooked and mashed together is good old comfort food!
OneStonedCrow, you have given the best definition of pulling the parsnip!
Matron, it does sound like it, maybe if he was around to read the blog he would have come up with a story.
Kathleen,I don't know if it is edible, but there are enough of us to eat it here!
Any creative uses for it? a bit of wood carving perhaps {wink}