Odd Fellows
Root crops are pretty standard fare here for the winter. Most do well on medium soil fertility and store easily, not requiring much processing, just storage in the ground (in our area) or a root cellar/ cool room. However, the standard beets, carrots and rutabagas get a little old.
For us I have added celeriac to the mix, and for the chickens, mangels fill the bill.
Brilliant and Mars celeriac.
I have given up growing celery in favor of the celeriac. I never was much of a fan of the overly irrigated store-bought type of celery, and for the kitchen, celeriac can’t be beat. The flavorful tops are so useful in soups and stews, and the mild root is great in any dish that calls for root vegetables.
It differs in the garden too, celery was never much of a happy camper in my non-irrigated garden. Celeriac just seems to bide its time through the summer sending down deep roots and slowly growing. I don’t get the huge bulbs like you see in the store, but they are plenty big enough for the home kitchen. Perfect for the seasonal eater, its ready about the time we want to start eating roots, and the abundant tops are great for seasoning many dishes.
Another plus is that I haven’t really seen any pests bother the plant in any stage, except an occasional vole nibble. The voles have an interesting palate, they will decimate parsley root, and leave the celeriac alone. That reason alone is enough to grow celeriac.
For the chickens, I grew mangels this year. Pretty easy to grow, same requirements as garden beets. Lots of greens and pretty sizeable roots too. Although I have never seen (or been able to grow) the 20 pound monsters claimed by the seed catalog description. I could thin more, and get bigger roots, but I am happy with how these sized up, and the chickens love them.
Golden Eckendorf Mangel
Now is the time to start planning next year’s garden, and including roots can really round out your food and feed supply.
Food Renegade
Simple, Green, Frugal Co-op
Do the chickens just peck at / eat the whole raw root?
Yep, they disappear one peck at a time.
Nita do you chop them up for the chickens? I got some mangel seeds this year to grow for them but then we moved and they are all in my garden back at the old house. But what’s a year, right?
No, only for the cow, who actually doesn’t get any mangel, she gets a princess diet of parsnips and carrots.
How do you prepare the mangles for the hens? I don’t think ours could swallow a root that big…
I open the door and throw it in. They just peck away at it, literally
You have a sly sense of humour – always make me laugh!
I was going to say, I got on my knees with my hands tied behind my back and showed the chickens how to peck the mangel, but I thought better of it
Have you tried growing Lovage before? It has a great celery flavour and is fairly easy to grow.
Tanya, I haven’t, I’m a shameless annual gardener. I don’t get along with perennials too well, unless they thrive on total neglect and can outrun Himalayan blackberries!
Can you recommend a book about replacing grain feed with roots?
Jessica, I haven’t totally replaced grains with roots, but have gradually worked more roots into the diet. Feeds and Feeding by Morrison is a classic, as long as you stick with the older editions. Probably 1950 and before.
Just in case you were interested, I found an electronic copy of this for free online!
http://www.archive.org/details/feedinghandbook00henrrich
where do you buy the mangelseeds?
Mads, Johnny’s, Shumway, Reimers, Jung among others carry them.
Our cows – 2 dairy and Chuck the 1/2 beef and even baby calf Lucy line up at the fence every morning waiting for their mangles and carrots. We usually over-winter them in the ground with lots of straw mulch but they freeze somewhat by Jan/Feb and then we have to wait until May (when I dig the parsnips for them and us) to get them out – they are amazingly still ok. We’re working on a better storage plan so we can get to them all winter. I hang the mangles for the chickens in their outside run. Ranchers around here think we’re a little weird
…they always think I’m saying “mangos” and few have heard of “mangles” . Actually got the idea for mangles from you several years ago! Thanks! I’ve tried celeric – didn’t get it to germinate very well but I do have celery year round in the passive solar greenhouse.
Marcia, you’re chickens are spoiled! I just toss them in, and they go to town! If I use straw here the voles think they’re in 7th heaven with a nice dry roof they overwinter nicely- the voles I mean, the root crops become vole feed
Hey everybody needs a weirdo around right?
I start those celeriac early, transplant, and than finally transplant to the garden. Bad as tomatoes…but not near the work
Those mangles are amazing! I wonder how they would do here… Of course, every root crop I tried this year rotted in the ground because it was so wet… followed by so dry…. It was just that kind of gardening year.
I do have some overgrown pattypan squash that I’m trying in storage for the chickens. The shell is so hard I have to split them but they love them.
Judy, they should do great! That is if you get some decent gardening weather. I thought we might be in that boat too, but it finally turned to summer in August, at least for a little bit
I’ve never heard of a Mangel. Beautiful pics of the garden.
I enjoy your informative posts and beautiful photos! I’m curious if you’ve watched the recent film “Back to Eden” and if so what your thoughts are on it. I’m trying out the technique in one garden area. The film is available online at http://backdenfilm.com, and no, I’m not paid to promote it.
dp, I did see that late this summer, a neighbor recommended it, since they had come across it after a frustrating season or two of gardening. My first thought was too bad Ruth Stout didn’t have an indie film crew following her around back in her day.
I think he is under the false assumption that you have to irrigate and till all the time to be successful at gardening, maybe because he grew up in So. Cal., and now lives in the Olympic rainshadow. Neither are necessary at the scale he talks about in his past gardening. He almost had me on the sustainable and permaculture statement until he went and purchased a pickup load of municipal compost, better than nothing but I would be checking out your source if that is what you need to do for a compost charge for the garden. Maybe his city is different…and doesn’t use chemicals. I suppose the fallacy that an annual garden should look like a dark forest floor is what bugged me the most. Here in the Pacific Northwest conifer belt the duff doesn’t grow much because of lack of light, not because of the deep cover. An annual vegetable garden is no more natural than my Guernsey milk cow. However that aside, we all need more organic matter and carbon for our soils. Applying mulch is a good way to do that. You just have to watch make sure you keep the fungal/bacteria balance correct. Perennials and trees like a more fungal based soil (duff, chips, etc) and annual crops need a more bacteria dominated soil. So his orchard looks great, and his garden looks odd to me with all those chips/compost and the wide spacing. Good books on the subject is Teaming with Microbes or Soul of the Soil. I think chips in the paths would be a good idea for humus building over time and lessening impact of foot traffic, and compost in beds/rows for the actual growing. It all does break down over time. I find that our composted animal manure in combination with different cover crops works well to keep up the tilth and fertility in our gardens. A combination of methods always works better just sticking with one method only.
Probably the best thing about the film is that if it gets someone excited about gardening then they should go with it. It matters more that people garden, than not garden. And if you’re starting out with bare ground that has been mistreated, (which most land has these days) then I say go for it if it floats your boat
How providential. I was just talking to Hub about mangles but I couldn’t remember their name. I want to grow a lot more feed for our 25 hens, at least, to supplement their bag feed.
Jenny, yeah mangels are just a supplement for my hens, but it gives them something fresh and full of energy for the dark days of winter.
So I googled mangles in hopes of having an intelligent response. No go. It was all about laundry machines. Seriously. What the crap is a mangle?
Amy, the spelling of mangel gets mangled a lot
Try Mangel, or Mangel wurzel, or fodder beet. A mangel is very large beet, and is now most commonly used for sugar production, but used to be common on small farms for winter forage/feed.
I’m going to have to give celeriac a try. About a month ago I harvested carrot seeds from my plants that went wild when I had to be away from the garden for almost a year. When I got back last week I though I had grass growing in one of my beds. It was wall-to-wall carrots from seeds that escaped during the picking and removal of the plants. I guess I’ll just let them go and see what happens. – Margy
Margy, that’s funny, I have a rutabaga spot that is the same. Once you start saving seed, you start seeing stragglers come up year after year.
I have never heard of a Mangel, chickens really eat them? How difficult is it to grow them? Any information would be helpful I’m interested in growing some for my chickens. Thanks Ellen
Ellen, mangel are sugar or fodder beets. Chickens love them and they provide a good source of energy during the cold months. Easy to grow if you can grow table beets. They have basically the same requirements, although they need a little more in row spacing to attain large size.
I’ve read that mangels are supposed to be great dairy cow fodder. I would grow some for chickens, if I had chickens (I tried, but had to cull one due to lameness and the other three turned out to be cockerels- two are still in the freezer and we ate the largest with friends last night).
Where did you get your mangel seed?
Paula, they are, but too much of a pain for me for Jane. For cows they should be cured before feeding, and I find the carrots and parsnips easier to grow and store. No curing, or digging to protect from frost. But for the chickens they are pretty easy. Sorry about your chicken project, it’s a bummer when you’re expecting eggs!
Shumway
Although the spacing for an inch is not right, for large roots, 4″ would be minimum and 8″ would work better.
I am very encouraged by your dry land gardening experiments and I REALLY appreciate how you don’t mind sharing your experiences. Because of your blog this year I tried dry land potatoes with not too bad results: #200 from #50 pounds of ‘taters. Not the #300-350 I usually get but not bad! The most important result for me is to realize I can feed my family food that is nutritious and sustainable if water became scarce or too expensive. Thank you for sharing!
Elizabeth, thank you!
I have been growing Celeriac for a few years too! Even though they are so ugly, they taste good in this recipe too!
1 celeriac peeled and chopped
1 granny smith apple, peeled and chopped
1 leek, chopped
1 potato, peeled and chopped
boil and in water till tender, drain, and mash with processor.
Add 1/4 cup cream and teaspoon of butter and Yum!
I live in a mediterranian area and also grow Celery Leaf (parsnip rooted celery)as a celery substitute.When it goes to seed, I collect and sprinkle on damp sand in a pot and keep a saucer of water below and they sprout like hairs on a cats back:)Keep about 10 in pots in the shade in the hot weather otherwise in the sun and have plenty of celery leaves for salads with none of the bother of celery.
Norma, yum! That sounds really good. Good tips – thanks