mangel crop 2023

Interesting note: 

Last year's mangel patch had a set-back in July; what we imagine to have been cercospora leaf spot caused leaf die-back. Normally at that point in the year the beet leaves, because they meet between the rows, effectively shade out the worst of the weeds, but the leaf die-back allowed our endemic amaranth and velvet leaf to take up a lot of space and sunlight, space and sunlight the mangels needed. Average root size was about half of normal.

The interesting thing was that the crop itself was as big as normal; even bigger, maybe. Two-tenths of an acre produced about two tons of roots, a good haul for our acid clay soil. Smaller roots, but more successful ones.

By the way, don't let your mangels get frost-burned. We're generally very careful to get our roots under cover early, but we were surprised in November by several days of below-zero weather. The tarps we had covering our piles of harvested roots couldn't prevent many from surface frost, and we're seeing the results as we feed out the roots now, in soft, blackened mangels, messy and hard to cut. The pigs still eat them, but it's easy to see they won't store into June the way mangels often do. 

It doesn't pay to take the weather for granted.