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Planting
Days to maturity
Seasonal yields
Sow indoors · Direct sow · Transplant outdoors
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Plant · P-251
Parsnip
Pastinaca sativa
Parsnip is a Texas-grown root crop with two uses beyond the root that most gardeners never think to take: its umbels, left to bolt in a second year, draw hoverflies and predatory wasps that hunt aphids, and its leaves and root make an effective homemade spray against aphids and spider mites. The root itself sweetens after a hard frost - or two weeks in a refrigerator, since it is cold rather than soil that turns starch to sugar - and the young leaves and shoots cook as a vegetable while the seed flavours like dill. The one real hazard is handling, not eating: the sap causes a sunlight-triggered skin reaction strong enough to blister in summer sun, so bolted plants get cut with gloves and long sleeves, never bare-armed on a bright day.
Record at a glance
Growing profile
- Sun
- Full Sun
- USDA zone
- USDA 2–9
- Soil
- Sand · Loam · Clay
- Moisture
- Well-Drained · Moderate
Vertical layer
Rhizosphere- Soil pH
- 5.5–7
- Plant type
- Biennial
- Mature height
- 12–18 in
- Mature spread
- 6–12 in
- Plant spacing
- 4–6 in
- Root type
- Tap
- Spread pattern
- Seed
Keep exploring
Similar plants
Discover more plants with shared forest layers or growing conditions.
Beet
Beta vulgaris
Beet is a fast two-harvest crop from one sowing: the root eats raw, grated, or cooked, and the leaves make a genuinely good spinach…
Rhizosphere · USDA 2–11
Black Salsify
Pseudopodospermum hispanicum
Black salsify is the better-flavored, more forgiving cousin of common salsify, and hardly grown in the United States. Its root can be left in…
Rhizosphere · USDA 5–9
Burdock Root
Arctium minus
Lesser Burdock is a different species from the straight gobo root grown as a vegetable - it is the stronger medicinal plant of the two, rated…
Rhizosphere · USDA 3–10
Celeriac
Apium graveolens var rapaceum
Celeriac is a better companion plant than it is a headline vegetable: growing plants repel the cabbage white butterfly, which makes it worth…
Rhizosphere · USDA 3–9
Chinese Artichoke
Stachys affinis
Chinese Artichoke produces small, pearl-shaped tubers with a mild, nutty, artichoke-like taste, eaten raw or lightly cooked - and unlike most…
Rhizosphere · USDA 4–8
Daikon
Raphanus sativus var longipinnatus
Daikon is a large white radish grown as much for what it does to soil as for what ends up on a plate - one planting yields root, leaves,…
Rhizosphere · USDA 2–11
The deeper layer
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- Primary
- Locked ecological function
- Secondary
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- Byproduct
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Behind the record
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