I'm not so sure what happened. I believe my father grew those two varieties and they sometimes attained huge sizes. Perhaps the core got woody. But if they did, my Mom took care of it before it reached my plate!

I have primarily grown Cobham Improved Marrow, here in Oklahoma. I have never encountered woody roots with this variety. But what I don't know, is whether or not you have had some conditions which brought this on.

George

When is the best time to plant parsnips? I threw some seeds out with my fall planting in September and they actually came up. I dont know if they will get to stay there long enough.

Amy, Usually when parsnips get woody it is either because they were allowed to get too dry while growing (they like consistent moisture and growing in soil that never gets dry) or they were left in the ground too long--10 or 11 months is too long. I do think that some varieties get woody much easier than others. I finally gave up growing them several years ago because I couldn't keep their soil consistently as moist as they like it. The odd thing about parsnips is that prefer a sandy-loamy, rich soil that holds moisture well, but here in OK sandy-loamy soil can dry out too much in the summer heat (or, this year, even in the autumn heat), and they don't care much for clay soil, but the clay soil will, up to a point, hold the moisture they need much better than sandy loam will. Oddly, I have had better luck with them in very well-amended clay than in sandier soil, but only if I wanted very consistently in the heat and never let the soil get dry.

George, If your mom managed to core woody parsnips before preparing them, she is a better person than I am. It seems like that would be a lot of work. I'm betting your dad just didn't grow woody parnsips.

Kim, I've grown them from a spring sowing and a summer sowing, and for me, seed sown in summer produced better harvests than seed sown in late winter/early spring. It really depends on the variety you plant as some of them have very long DTMs. Just check the DTM of the variety you want to grow, add 2 or 3 weeks to allow for germination time (sometimes they are very slow), and use that number to tell you how many days ahead of your anticipated frost season to sow the seeds.

The key to it is that their flavor is much better after being exposed to frost several times, so you want to plant them late enough in our long growing season that they'll mature just a very short time ahead of those first few frosts. If you plant them really early and try to hold them in the ground a long time so they can be hit by frost to improve the flavor, you run the risk of having them be overmature and woody. In the event you have mature parsnips that are ready to be harvested and frost is nowhere in sight, it is better to harvest them and have them be slightly less sweet than to leave them in the ground too long (especially if the ground is dry) and have them turn woody.

Because our summers are so hot and so dry, I have found that both parsnips and salsify just aren't happy here no matter what I do if I plant them in spring. They are sometimes only marginally happier if planted in summer for a fall/winter harvest. It just depends on how hot and dry the summer is and how much I am willing to irrigate (I water the garden much, much less in July and August than I used to because irrigation water is expensive and sometimes the garden output in dry summers isn't high enough to justify spending that money on irrigation.) I quit growing both of them and just buy them at Central Market if I want to eat some. Since no one else in the family but me eats them, I rarely buy them. I have limited space to grow root crops since I have to grow them in raised beds lined on the bottom and sides with hardware cloth to exclude the voles that will devour root crops, so it is wasteful for me to devote that precious protected growing space to a crop only eaten by 1 family member.

Dawn

Hmmmm. Thanks for the feed back. I planted the first time in early Jan. Of course they don't germinate till it warms up, and a dog dug in the bed, so I planted more in Feb. They probably germinated in March. I water all summer, but it was a bed futher from the house and may not have been watered as consistantly as others. My carrots grew great there the previous fall, but we probably had more rain. We like parsnips, and I've never seen salsify in the store and wanted to try it. I haven't dug any salsify yet. The root parsley did fine. I think I will harvest all the root crops before the week end cold. I guess I'll try George's variety this year. It is currently planned for a bed with heavier soil, but still kind of far from the house. I think I will plant some in spring and some in summer and see how it works for me.

I guess I will see what happens and report back. I have never had them germinate before so I was excited to see they were still viable seeds.

I've had the best results planting anytime from about now until the middle of February. They can be persnickety though, as Dawn commented. This year, for instance, my entire planting apparently died, disappearing by July, only to resprout in early November. I have not yet checked, but I suspect there are no roots worth harvesting.

I grew Turga last year and left most of the plants in the ground for seed. They did gloriously, flowering and producing seed. For me, a commercial seed packet is only a means to get started with a variety. I need much more seed, so I can throw it all over the place, in order to get a decent planting . So, I produce my own seed,

Parsnips were once a mainstay in the Northeast, where my roots lay. People grew rutabagas, cabbage, carrots and parsnips in great quantities, as these were their main winter vegetables. Fortunately, they grew extremely well in that region. But here in Oklahoma one needs to be pretty determined to grow them. Most of my generation of Easterners abandoned all of these crops, except carrots. They simply fell out of vogue. I think this was because of our modern food infrastructure, which allows us to have fresh strawberries, etc. all year around. My mother's mother was a parsnip fanatic. So my dad grew them every year. Of course, we ate them too. I never missed them when I left home. But the first time I grew them in Oklahoma, and ate them...wow! I couldn't believe how much I love them!

I saw Turga on Sandhill's website, I think I will try them next year, too.