The sweet, nutty taste of baked parsnips epitomizes being indoors on a cold winter’s day – the sugar in the parsnip lightly caramelized and sticky, the skin glistening, the interior creamy and squashy. We don’t eat meat in our house, but we still have a typical Christmas dinner with roast vegetables, bread sauce, stuffing and gravy. The roast potatoes are important, but what makes it are the parsnips baked in olive oil.
My soil is not ideal for growing organic parsnips, being too heavy and cold, and sometimes wet. Prize-winning parsnips need deep, sandy soil that is also fertile. I should probably try one of the modern short-rooted varieties that are ideal for small gardens and containers: a few big pots of parsnips will produce a decent yield and are relatively trouble-free. Parsnips do take a long time to grow and mature, but on the other hand they need little attention and they can be left in the ground after the frosts have started.
Parsnips are closely related to carrots and, like the rest of their kin, are slow to germinate. The wild parsnip actually produces a number of fake seeds, with no embryo, around the edge of the flat head of small, yellow flowers. This is an insurance policy. Insects and animals might nibble around the edge, but the fertile seeds have a good chance of being left intact. Cultivated parsnip seeds, however, tend not to display this characteristic and germination is highly reliable.
Sow parsnip seed only in warm conditions. It’s unlikely to germinate in the cold, so delay your sowings until at least mid-spring; early sowings are also more prone to parsnip canker. Many gardeners often sow something with the parsnip to germinate quickly so that the row (or patch) is marked as soon as possible. Radishes are a good choice because they germinate rapidly, and can be harvested while the young parsnip seedlings are growing.
Another idea, especially suitable when sowing parsnips in a block, is to mix the seed with hardy annuals – you could use a cornfield mix of poppies, corn cockle and corn marigolds. Sow the mix sparingly, and thin when the plants are several centimetres high, making sure you leave the parsnips in the ground.
Our modern parsnip has been developed from the wild parsnip, a delightful meadow plant that can grow up to 1.5-1.8m (5-6ft) high, branching as it goes and producing an array of lime-green yellow flowers. The Greeks and Romans valued it, and the Emperor Tiberius imported parsnips from the Rhine Valley. It’s most often grown in Northern Europe where it develops its full taste as the starches turn to sugar in the cold.
