How to Pick Healthy Root Vegetables

It is fairly easy to choose healthy root vegetables. Here is how:

Things You'll Need

• Your local grocer's produce department
• A community garden
• Your own back yard
• A farmer's market

Instructions

1. Whether you shop at your local grocery, buy from a community garden or a farner's market, or pick the produce on your own back yard, it is easy to spot healthy root vegetables.

2. Beets, turnips, parsnips, carrots, potatoes, sweet potatoes, peanuts, radishes, onions and garlic all grow in or under the ground. Healthy root vegetables are firm, colorful, crisp and have no spots or cuts on them.

3. When danger of frost is past, plant your root vegetables. Most root vegetables do best in well-aerated, slightly sandy soil, so cultivate at least six inches deep, adding sand if needed to make a more loose soil. Root vegetables do not do nearly as well in heavy clay soil.

4. Once plants are about four inches high, thin them out to about six inches apart. Potatoes do not need to be thinned. Turnip greens, beet tops, and young onions and garlic can all be eaten. Do not eat potato leaves or stems.

5. Harvest when vegetable is visible above the soil, except for potatoes. Harvest hose by diggin up the plants, taking care not to cut the potatoes if possible. If you have planted potatoes in a barrel, simply tip the barrel over and begin breaking away the soil, saving it for your compost pile.