Well as you may or may not already know my mother and I are attempting to grow these in our back garden. We are using those big Ikea garden bags which open out into a large deep bucket type object, we then filled the bag with compost and soil. These bags are great for other root vegetables too because of their depth and draining capabilities. They are growing too There are moderate sized parsnip leaves poking out of the bag/tub bucket thing. Though we planted them the same time as our potatoes which are now ready for harvesting, they do seem to take a good bit more time to grow, they will probably be ready for consumption in the late autumn or very earlier winter providing the frost dosent get them.

I think parsnips and carrots are the only vegetables on the planet my brother eats so on Sunday dinners we steam carrots and parsnips and then mash them together with a bit of salt and pepper. Alternatively we get a big roasting dish together and chop carrots parsnips, turnip and baby potatoes with cherry tomatoes and Garlic and just shove them all in evenly, we then douse the veg with olive oil and salt and pepper. We shove this mixture in the oven and out come really nice crunchy sweet parsnip and other vegetables. You could try just doing the parsnip on its own too but I just find this a great way of keeping the sweet crunchiness of the vegetable. Parsnip soup is pretty easy to make too, there are quite a few things you can do with this one.

Though I have to say they are a nightmare to chop up at times when they are large and a very hard vegetable when raw, so we don't buy them as much as we used to since other vegetables are so widely obtainable.