Salsify

The roots stay in the ground over winter. You do not have to dig them up, and after the first frost they taste sweeter. A layer of straw over the bed keeps the soil free and makes harvesting easier until February; if you leave individual plants standing, they flower in the second year and give seed.

You propagate salsify exclusively from seed. This is the only practical method for this biennial taprooted plant. Sow directly into the open ground as soon as the soil can be worked, ideally from mid March to the end of April. Choose a sunny spot with deeply loosened, sandy, humus-rich, free-draining soil so that the taproot grows straight and does not branch. Place the seeds about 2 to 3 cm deep and leave about 30 to 40 cm between rows; later thin to about 15 cm in the row. The key point: keep the soil evenly moist until germination and in the young seedling stage. If it dries out in this phase, the sowing often comes up poorly. Germination takes about a week and a half to three weeks, depending on soil temperature. In the first year the plant forms only a leaf rosette and the harvestable taproot (harvest from October into winter). If you want to save your own seed, let individual plants overwinter in the ground: in the second year salsify bolts (up to about 120 cm), flowers violet in June/July and forms ripe seeds, which you collect from late summer as soon as the feathery pappus parachutes open. Store the seed cool and dry; fresh seed germinates most reliably, and its viability drops markedly after a few years.