Digging It

 

Turga parsnip

Over the years I’ve narrowed my quest for the ultimate (for my conditions) roots for the house cow.  Initially I fell for all the high yield claims of mangels, and then struggled through the off-tasting milk from brassicas like rutabagas in the mix. I’ve narrowed it down to a select few root crops the last few gardening seasons.  To fit the bill the roots have to be easy to grow, easy to store, and something most likely we are growing to eat ourselves.  The following pros and cons are just from experimentation over the years, taking into consideration my climate, gardening abilities and the fact I am only trying to grow a small amount of supplemental feed for one full size cow.  Here is the list from my least favorite to my what works the best.

Thumbs down:  Mangels, easy to grow and yes, they yield like the dickens.  But…they tend to make my cow a little loose on the back end, if you get my drift.  They require harvesting and storage to protect from freezing due to their growth habits.  A good portion of the sugar beet is above the ground.  If you have a large root cellar, want to mess with a clamp, or better yet extra space in your walk-in cooler, sugar beets would be a good choice.  I’ve read that storage mellows them and lessens the diarrhea effects, still, too much trouble for me to find out.

Thumbs down:   Brassicas in any form.  One, they can flavor the milk if you aren’t careful with your feeding times.  Supposedly feeding brassicas immediately after milking helps allay some of the cabbage fart smell in the milk.  I could pull this off since I milk on a 14/10 schedule, but I don’t really care to explore further using cole crops as milk cow feed, as I  could detect a slight cabbage-y taste in the cream even if I was diligent with my feeding times.  Probably the biggest reason for me to not delve too far into brassica forage plants is because I already grow way too many coles, and crop rotation gets a little tricky as it is.

Thumbs up:  Beets.  We eat them, they are much smaller so less likely to cause digestive upsets in the cow like the larger sugar beets do, and since they form little root above ground I can easily soil mulch them to protect them from freezing.  Downside?  Voles love them.

Lutz beet for lunch

Thumbs up:  Carrots.  We eat carrots like crazy and the cow loves them.  Easy to grow, and easy to store in situ like the beets with soil mulch to prevent freezing in our garden zone.  Downside?  Voles!

Red Cored Chantenay

 

Turga parsnip – 18″ roots

Big thumbs up:  Parsnips.  What’s not to like about a deep-rooted vegetable that really has no pests, including voles and doesn’t even need the soil mulch for freeze prevention?  We don’t really eat a lot of parsnips, but since they are so easy to grow and to save seed from I’m thinking we should ask Jane to share a few.

In summary, being a lazy gardener I have taken the path of least resistance in regards to growing root crops for the milk cow.  My goal is to supplement her winter feed with something fresh and raw, and root crops fit that bill. In our climate I am able to harvest and store roots weekly with a small amount of labor and space allotted for root storage.  Whether this saves me any money or not is debatable, but I sure enjoy growing roots for the milk cow.  Lifestyle choice right?