to pull or not to pull?

[Islaskye]

Ive still got carrots, onions, spring onions and parsnips in the ground and now jack frost has arrived.
should I pull them up and if so, how to store them, theres only so much carrot and parsnip soup we can manage!!!!
any advice will be greatfully recieved as iam a first timer veg grower!!! still learning!!!!

[MKG]

Leave your parsnips where they are - they can survive the worst and folk knowledge says they're better after a frost!!! (or deep freeze).

Carrots will not, definitely not, like low temperatures. They rot. Likewise onions.

I don't actually know about spring onions, never having grown the buggers after they refused to get any bigger one year. But I suspect they won't like being frozen either.

Mike

[Millymollymandy]

I have left young spring onions in the ground when I lived near Geneva (= extremely cold weather) and they survived no probs and I had lovely big early spring onions the next year. Still have some small ones in the ground right now so we'll see what happens! I've always left carrots in the ground too although I cover over the tops that show with soil - they didn't start to rot until about March.

Not sure about onions though - shouldn't they have been lifted and dried out months back? Or are they overwintering ones in which case they ought to be OK!!

[pelmetman]

We've left spring onions in the ground in the past. They don't seem to mind the cold but they have a much stronger flavour.

Sue

[Gem]

I left my carrots in until christmas last year and they were ok when pulled (still only little though *sigh*)

Gem

[Islaskye]

my carrots are huge this year, all be it pretty deformed!!!!! my sping onions are pretty massive too. i think I better get my onions up tomorrow and dry them out!! thats if I can crack through the ice!!