October « 2008 « TopVeg – growing veg,fruit&herbs

October 13, 2008

Bayonet Shaped Parsnips

Filed under: root veg — Tags: parsnip — TopVeg @ 8:02 pm

John has grown these magnificent bayonet shaped parsnips on his allotment in Yorkshire.

Bayonet-Parsnip

There are 3 main shapes of Parsnip – (Latin name – Pastinaca sativa ssp. sativa)

bulbous types with rounded shoulders
wedge types which are broad and long
bayonet types which are long and narrow

Parsnip-Bayonet

The bayonet parsnip above is 10″ or 26 cm long! John boasts that these parsnips are just the
thinnings! The final crop of bayonet shaped parsnips will be much larger!

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October 10, 2008

Why french & runner beans curl

People are wondering why French & runner beans go curly.

curly-beans

TopVeg spent a whole summer at Penn State university measuring the angle
of the curve – for plots of beans which were grown with different
amounts of trace elements!

bent-runner-bean

There does not seem to be much literature available about this, so we
asked the Pea Growing Research Organisation why
beans grow curly. This is their answer:

“We are not sure if there is any single reason for pod curvature. Some
varieties are more prone and although we tend to avoid the worst ones,
environmental conditions can be an over-riding factor. Temperatures,
particularly big fluctuations between day and night temperatures can be
associated but some work in the US seems to think that trace element
deficiencies may also be involved.”

Pod curvature in beans is due to several factors:

    * temperature – particularly big fluctuations between day and night
    * uneven rainfall
    * trace element deficiencies
    * bean variety -       White Apollo       is a runner bean variety producing straight beans.

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