How to Grow Root Crops in a Vegetable Garden

If you grow root crops in your vegetable garden, don't limit yourself to carrots. Beets, parsnips, radishes and turnips grown in your garden are more tender and flavorful than those you can buy at the grocery store. Additionally, growing your own root crops allows you to try heirloom varieties too finicky for commercial growers to produce.

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Seed tape
• Floating row covers
• High potash fertilizer
• Pitchfork

1. Choose root crops that match your soil type. If your soil is heavy or compacted, try miniature Little Chicago beets, any kind of radishes and Thumbelina carrots.

2. Amend your soil deeply. Root crops demand rich, loamy soil they can penetrate easily. If your soil is hardpan, you must grow root crops in raised beds.

3. Use a seed tape or sow seeds as thinly as possible. Seeds of root crops are very tiny, about the size of pepper flakes. Plant no more than 3 or 4 seeds per inch to prevent overcrowding.

4. Prevent pests by covering your seedlings with row covers immediately after germination. This cover prevents pests such as the carrot rust fly from laying eggs that erupt into larval infestations.

5. Water your root crops evenly. If you allow the surface of the soil to become dry and cracked, the seedlings can't break through the crust.

6. Fertilize root crops with a product high in potash and low in nitrogen. Excessive nitrogen produces coarse, mealy vegetables with poor flavor.

7. Harvest root crops by pushing down gently on the plant and then pulling up. This method prevents weak tops from breaking off. You can also plunge a pitchfork on either side of the vegetable and wiggle to loosen the soil around the vegetable.