I noticed that the neighbor had a really, really healthy potato plant last year in front of his compost pile. This Spring I noticed that he had brought a truck in since there were tire marks all around the front of his pile. A thought occurred to me - so I asked him, "You harvested those potatoes last year, dinchya? His response, "What potatoes?" He may have succeeded in eliminating them this season.

I appreciate the fact that you rescued plants "way too small" to be of any use and some beyond identification - giving them a new lease on life. But, Skybird, didn't you even think about creamed peas and new potatoes?

digitS'

They were way to little to eat yet, Digit! The biggest one was only about an inchand I couldnt throw something that little into boiling water! Would be about the same for me as throwing a live lobster into boiling water! Aint gonna happen! :-)

If they wanna get cooked, theyll have to grow up firstso theyre not so cute!

Skybird

Unbelievable!! Why is this cracking me up so much? I fully understand about the too-cute-to-cook factor, but I also have this "thing" about my personality that shows up when eating--I love eating cute, little foods. Tiny things like beans and peas and, yes, inch-size potatoes! Heat up that water, I'ma make a soup outa them taters!!

I, for some odd reason, am also finding the parsnip thingy to be very amusing. Gee, who knew parsnips could be the topic of discussion? Have you ever had parsnips mashed up with butter and cream? They are very much like mashed potatoes (poor potatoes) but with a slightly stronger flavour. I also like adding them to mashed potatoes, it is just different. Oh, and turnips and parsnips mashed together is really fun, too.

yay for dirty underground foods!!

Alright guys! Youre just not getting the concept of too small! Most of my "potatoes" were less than a half inch in diameter! Many of them were only a quarter inch. Too small! TOO small! Only one of them was a little bit over an inch. When I saw that one is when I finally figured out what it was I had. Ya gotta know that if I had a whole bunch of potatoes growing in a little quart size pot, they couldnt be too big! Im just gonna keep believing that the transplanting will work and theyll grow up big enough to at least be a bite each! They dont need to be BIG! Just big enough that I dont inhale them! And they really WERE cute! Ive (obviously) never seen such teeny, tiny little potatoes. Reminds me of last fall when a friend was over and she saw a tiny, tiny, tiny little eggplant on one of my plants. I think she wanted to pet it! She just couldnt quit looking at it, and had never considered that an eggplant could ever possibly be that small! She asked me what I was gonna do with itas if I were going to have it mounted and framed or somethingand I told her I was gonna wait till it froze and put it on the compost pile! She still talks about that cute little eggplant sometimes! But I WAY agree with you on some of those tiny things! Tiny beans are great, and I only ever eat small peas and corn. And small beets and carrots too! But big enough to actually chew!

I LOVE parsnips! Theyre soooo sweet! Sweet is good! My favorite way to have them is with pot roast. Chuck roast with tomatoes, onions, potatoes, carrots, and parsnips. Otherwise I just lightly boil or steam them, but mashing a few with potatoes sounds really good to me too. Theyre really good dipped in a light tempura batter and deep fried too. Im not as big a fan of turnips.

And what, might I ask, is wrong with discussing parsnips? Weve discussed everything else around here! So parsnips it is! And I was planning to ask a kohlrabi question too! Hmmm! Might need to rethink that one!

Ill sleep on it!
Skybird

Now I may know something about kohlrabi . . . And, I'm trying Kossak Kohlrabi this year. It is NOT supposed to be small and cute but rather a GIANT!!

Don't know where I came up with the idea to buy a seed packet - - oh yeah, the wife. The darn things are sllooooww. Probably be inedibly hot and tuff by the time they actually have a fruit, uh root, er . . . stem.

But about those parsnip seeds (oh, yeah :o). . . have no experience but don't see why they wouldn't be viable. I've grown Gladiator hybrid and really liked it but don't believe that there are other hybrids on the market.

(I'm goin' to have creamed peas and new potatoes SOMEtime this week. Those plants are very close to producing. :o)

digitS'

We let our parsnips go to seed the second year so we have fresh seed for the next year. The seed does not keep well for more than one year the germination goes way down so we save our own and we know how old it is. I have a lot going to seed now. We grow a lot and each year I make parsnips at the Senior Center for 50-100 people. I peel and cut into strips and put them in a large roaster with butter and brown sugar on top and bake for an hour. Really good! That is how my husband's grandmother fixed them as well as with a roast. We cover them with leaves in the fall and dig them in the winter.

We save the marble potatoes in the fall and then on a snowy afternoon boill them with the skins on and then cool and slip the skins and maked creamed peas and potaoes using peas from the freezer. Have also done same with small carrots and make creamed peas and carrots. Really goood!

Wazzamatta with Google?!? I tried connecting creamed and carrots with a hyphen and enclosed in quotation marks and both ways it gave me every recipe in the universe where the 2 words occur on the same page . . .

At the top of the google list was an actual Creamed Carrots with Peas - the problem, it uses 15 lbs. of carrots & 6 lbs. of peas!! Enuf for Margaret's senior center!

Anyway, creamed peas with potatoes are a cinch and I make it with no recipe at all. (Cook the potatoes first, add butter, peas, and heavy cream. Heat thoroughly and serve)

Had never thought about using carrots instead. Wonder how substituting parsnips would be?? (Betcha, good ;o). The only difference from potatoes that occurs to me is that the carrots may not be starchy enuf and require the addition of flour for thickening . . . the "feed the army" recipe includes flour cooked in butter (a rue?) which is added to the veggies.

I can try the carrots & peas almost immediately - got baby carrots turning orange! The parsnips will have to wait since they look like tiny cilantro plants right now. Fortunately, I didn't pull them accidentally as weeds as I did last year. Kept them out of the carrot bed and out of harm's way.

digitS'

White sauce - 2 Tablespoons butter, 2 Tablespoons flour, 1 cup milk or cream, salt and pepper and multiply for as much as you want. Thicken and add vegetables.

Thank you for the GREAT information, Margaret. Thats exactly what I needed to know.

I didnt know parsnip seed lost its viability that quickly. Thats probably why I got such poor germination this year! I used seed I had left from last year! With my tiny garden, I always have a LOT of seed left overand most of them still work fine for a couple years. Parsley seed and tomato seed I think are viable forever and ever, world without end, amen!

Can you tell me how closely you need to watch when the seed starts to ripen? Does it fall off of the plant pretty easily, or does it hang on well enough that you can leave it dry pretty well before harvesting it? Now that I know it works well, I just may leave a parsnip or two in the ground every year to grow my own seed. Theyre kind of pretty when theyre bloomingIll call them garden art!

Andin addition to the humorI got some good recipes too! When you do the roasting method, Margaret, do you melt the butter and pour it over them? And how much do you use? And how much brown sugar? ANDdo they come out mushy like winter squash, or are they still in individual pieces? They cook SO quickly when you boil them, but when I do them in the oven with pot roast, they can bake a long time and still stay looking like parsnipsand be soft, but not mushy!

But Im not a big fan of creaming veggies! When I was a kid, my mother creamed EVERYTHING! I guess I just got really tired of it. Shed just cook things, pour off the water, add a little bit of milk, and thicken it. I HATED veggies back then! But more than the creaming, I think the real problem was that she couldnt stand to throw anything out (got married during the depression!), so thered always be a few tough, stringy pieces of whatever it was that you couldnt chew and had to try to gag downsince you were required to eat all your vegetables! And she always cooked everything to a pulp too! Like you, Digit, with things like peas and corn, I heat them until theyre just barely hot, and things that really do need to be cooked a little bit, I cook just barely long enough to get them tender enough to eat. I LOVE veggies now! Still dont like lima beanseven little onesand I DONT like okra! Vegetables shouldnt be furry!

I have a question! I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE white sauce! But Ive always heard that it has a kazillion calories. Ive never been able to figure out how adding a little bit of butter and flour to milk would suddenly turn it into a calorie monster, so, does anybody know if thats a myth, or if white sauce really does have a kazillion calories! If thats a myth, Ill start making more of it, but if its true-----well, Ive recently managed to loose a couple of the "old age" pounds Ive put on in the last 6 monthsand Im not about to do something thats gonna put them back onto my rapidly headin south bod! I like veggies plain too!

And, Digit, I dont think you need this anymore, but you just didnt google the right thing! Heres a link to a whole list of creamed carrot recipes!

Thanks all,
Skybird

Parsnips are a lot like saving parsley seed. When the head starts to look a little brown then I clip and put in a paper bag in the garage. Then sometime in the spring I clean the seed. I don't have an amount for butter and brown sugar - except for my mother's way when it looks right! For a casserole dish maybe 1/4 cup butter and 1/2 cup brown sugar. I just cube the butter and sprinkle the brown sugar on top of it. Cover and bake for 1 hour at 350 degrees. It doesn't get mushy.