Parsnip Query.

Should be fine if you have no other option.

did they grow well where they were?
I think parsnips are the devil ...have only grown them well ONCE in the 6 years that I have had my land cleared..all other years they were difficult ...wouldnt grow or only a few grew etc..
am going to grow them in that row again (if i can find exactly where it was)
so ...best of luck with yours.

I grow them with Maximum Faff and normally achieve a good crop.

Seeds sown on damp kitchen paper in Tupperware box.

As soon as chitted "pricked out" to tubes made from rolling newspaper around an aerosol can (intention to provide narrow, 2" diameter, "pots" which are tall (4").

As soon as seed leaves show they are planted out. Once they get to the point of first true leaf showing the tap root is usually out of the bottom of the "tube" and then the Parsnip is likely to fork. I tear off the top paper around the "pot" so that there is none sticking out of the ground after planting (otherwise I find it acts as a wick and dries out the paper under ground).

For me this solves a number of problems:

My soil is very heavy, and impossible to get on it early enough to sow Parsnips conventionally

Germination is quick (less than 14 days) and old-ish seed will germinate (doesn't matter if it is sporadic, only the viable ones, which chit, are pricked out). So none of the risk that sowing outdoors has for the seed rotting / being slow to germinate, in a cold spring, such that it is then too late for a top-up sowing.

No gaps in planting - as only "ready germinated" plants are put out.

I grow about 50 each year (as many "tubes" as I can squeeze into a 2' square gravel tray)

Sown 10-Mar, this photo after seed leaves have then appeared




planted out about 3 weeks later, this photo 04-Jun (so about 3 months from sowing)



No gaps

Parsnip Query.

Yes they did grow well. Thanks for your response.

Parsnip Query.

Thanks Rustylady.

Parsnip Query.

Thanks for that Kristen, most helpful.

My method varies slightly from the paper pot one. It gave good results previously so I am trying it again. Did not bother last year and had short forked roots.

- Chit on kitchen roll
- Dib lots of parsnip shapped holes in my heavy soil
- Sprinkle compost into the holes
- Drop chitted seed onto top of each filled hole
- Cover with another sprinkle of compost
- Water in

Hope for big fork free snip's

Thats how I grow my parsnip and seems to work out fine.

How deep do you reckon you dib?

Well, about 8-10 inches.

Perhaps I should be more optimistic when I do the next load tomorrow. I'll get a 2ft stick and report back in Oct/Nov!

I think i might have had two lucky years then? . i rotavate,put a stick either end of rows and some string all nice and straight, i drag a broom handle in the soil to make a little trench and put seeds in, i have never thinned out and have had so many good parsnips its unreal ,iv not had any conpetition winners but supermarket size is standard. im even growing 3 rows of parsnips for a freind on my land this year as they just seem to love growing here????

I have heard of people making a cone-shaped hole by ramming a crowbar into the ground, and working the top round in an increasingly large-diameter circle until they have the "Parsnip shape" that they want and I was wondering if you were doing something like that

I make the holes for mine with a bulb planter, and they are only the depth of the newspaper-pots, and I have wondered for some time if should make the initial hole with bulb planter, and then do the crowbar-thing to deepen it. Heavy clay here ... and I suppose I have always thought that what I was doing was Enough Faff without going to more trouble.

The part of my Parsnip up to the depth of the bulb planter, and a bit more - say maybe 6" - makes a goodly shaped root, but the piece below that is usually impossible to get out of the soil without mammoth digging and thus it usually snaps off. I assume in lighter soil it would more-or-less pull up whole. So I'm not sure that making better / deeper planting holes would actually get me a big and beautifully formed root that I could easily get out of the ground.

Plus the "top part" that we do get is enough for a meal - it is of a very generous diameter at the top, and pretty good girth even at 6" depth - although, I suppose, that proportionately quite a lot of it is woody, and cut away, whereas if I got the bottom bit out that bit would not have much woody-part?

I now have no idea what, if anything, to do extra this year !!

(Sowing them would be a good start! Normally do that 1st March, and not yet done <fx:HidesHeadInShame!> )

I'm expecting that you are on light land? If you tell me you are on heavy clay I'm going to cry!

I've been very encouraged to try your newspaper method, Kristen!
Let's hope it works for us too.


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