| |
Planting parsnips. May be grown over a wide
area of the United States. Parsnips, however, do better in the northern
sections of the country. Although they require warm soil and weather at
planting time, they do not grow well in the high midsummer temperatures
of the South.
They do best where they may be sown in the
spring, grown during a mild summer, and harvested after the arrival of
cold weather. Deep, fertile, light, crumbly soil, well stocked with rotted
manure and commercial fertilizer, is most suitable. Use fresh seeds, not
more than a year old, and assist germination by covering with leaf mould,
sand, soil, and sifted coal ashes, peat or similar, non-baking material.
Plant in rows 16 inches apart, covering the seeds to a depth of 1/2 inch.
Seeds should be sown thickly and the plants
thinned later to a 3-inch spacing. Tramping the soil after the seeds are
sown sometimes stimulates germination. Roots in cold storage above freezing
improve in quality faster than those remaining in the ground. Winter freezing
in the ground improves quality, and the belief that parsnips which stay
in the ground the winter over and then start growth in the spring are
poisonous is without foundation. Poisoning cases attributed to so-called
wild parsnips have been traced, to water hemlock, which somewhat resembles
the parsnip.
Be careful in using wild plants
of this sort.
|
