GardenParsnip variety
Andover Parsnip
✓ In your garden
Andover is a bayonet parsnip, ready in about 120 days. It’s a long ivory taproot that turns sweet and nutty after frost — a patient, cool-season crop. Sow the seed directly in spring (it hates transplanting), give it loose, stone-free soil to grow straight, and leave it in the ground through the first hard freezes, which turn its starch to sugar.
“A sweet, nutty winter root — best after a hard frost.”
Growing basics — shared by every parsnip
Andover grows like any other parsnip. The full picture — how deep to plant, spacing, feeding, pests, harvest — lives on the Parsnip page so it's maintained in one place.
- Sun
- Full Sun
- Spacing (in row)
- 3–6 in
- Row spacing
- 12–24 in
- Planting depth
- 0.25–0.5 in
- Soil pH
- 6–6.5
- Water
- Moderate
What is Andover good for?
- RoastingCaramelizes sweet and nutty. Great
- Soups & mashSilky puréed. Great
- RawBetter cooked — starchy raw. Skip it
From how it grows — kitchens vary.
—
Want the full 10/50/90% odds + nearest stations? Open the frost tool →When to plant Andover in your zone
Zone 6bGreenhouse or cover on: your start slides ~4 weeks earlier and your harvest stretches ~3 weeks later (shown striped).
Planting seeds straight in the ground only works where the season's long and warm — most gardeners start seeds indoors or buy young plants, or you'd pick your first tomato right as frost hits.
Comfortable — first ripe fruit lands around late Jul, well before your typical frost (~late Oct).
- Plant seeds outside
- late Mar – early Apr
- Growing
- early Apr – late Jul
- Picking
- late Jul – early Aug
Typical dates for zone 6b — set your zone or ZIP above for yours.
Growing Andover — the things that trip people up
- Parsnip seed is slow and fussy — use fresh seed each year, keep the soil surface damp for two to three weeks until it sprouts, and don’t give up early.
- Leave the roots in the ground until after a few hard frosts — cold converts their starch to sugar, and they hold in the soil right through winter under a little mulch.
Andover parsnip at a glance
| Type | Bayonet |
|---|---|
| Days to ripe | 120 days after you plant it outside |
Extra fields from seed-catalog listings and university growing guides. Days to ripe and disease resistance shift with your climate and seed source — double-check with your local extension office before you buy.
Save it and the plant lights up — kept right here in your browser, no account needed. It's the first thing GardenTrack starts remembering for you.
Kept on this device. Want it safe if your browser clears or you switch phones? Back it up free — just your email, no password.
GardenTrack is in beta now — it'll remember every plant you add here and tell you what to do and when. One email, no spam.
Common questions about Andover
How long does Andover take to grow?
About 120 days — one of the longest-season roots, sown in spring and pulled from late fall onward.
Why leave Andover until after frost?
Cold weather converts the root’s starch to sugar, so frost-kissed parsnips are far sweeter. They keep in the ground through winter.
Browse more parsnip varieties →