Grow Your Own Magazine

There's just no sign of life!

And the seeds have been tucked into a bed of damp tissue paper in a plastic tub in the airing cupboard for ages.

Sigh, I've never managed to get parsnips to germinate.

You need fresh seed which when sown into the ground goes 'Three times to the Devil' before you see any greenery above ground!

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My Majesty made for him a garden anew in order
to present to him vegetables and all beautiful flowers.- Offerings of Thutmose III to Amon-Ra (1500 BCE)

I`ve got mine on wet tissue in the G/house for 2 weeks, no sign of life either!

Hi
Mine was on the windowsill in the kitchen and came up in a couple of weeks; I only need about 5 to grow for winter roasties. Have you tried some in the sun rather than in the airing cupboard?

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Andrea :wavehello

http://www.growfruitandveg.co.uk/gra...logs/zazen999/

moon trials completed:
tomatoes
[46% increase in crop per seed sown and 10% increase in crop per plant]

currently underway:
calabrese
garlic

http://linearlegume.blogspot.com/

Put 2 lots on damp paper, both last years seed. White gem grew legs in about a week and the others never did

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Gardening requires a lot of water - most of it in the form of perspiration. Lou Erickson, critic and poet

I just popped about 10 seeds in a pot of compost, put them on the kitchen window sill an about 10 days later they all come through. My seeds are dated to be used by 1/2008.

I cant think why yours are not

My seeds are Suttons parsnip F1 gladiator if that is any help.

Wren

Golly! I need to test mine just to find out how long they'll take to germinate. I gathered from last parsnips thread that a heated propagator could take as short as 1 week, similar to a warm airing cupboard, if not then it's probably due to outdated parsnips seeds. Peeps here seem to buy/use fresh seeds every year. Err....mine were bought last year but I didn't get the chance to grow them.

BTW my parsnip (White Gem) sown on 5 Feb have not germinated yet but they weren't started off in the heated propagator. Have now put them in HP but still no sign so I'm treating these sowings as duff, history.

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Food for Free

I thought 'three times to the devil' was parsley Snadger or is it just that he gets everything!
I've read a tip in a couple of magazines recently from someone who wraps 3 seeds in a cigarette paper & twists it up & plants it. No idea if it works though.

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Into every life a little rain must fall.

ah... the words "last year's seed" give it away.

Parsnip seed goes off unbelievably quickly. I know they put a date on the seed packet for two years hence, but what they don't say is that while they will germinate, it'll only be about 10% of them by that time.

You should always buy parsnip seed fresh, every year, and don't leave it hanging around.

And I sowed mine in modules, in John Innes seed compost, about 2 weeks ago - I bring mine inside - ordinary room, not airing cupboard, I'd have said that would be too warm - but put them in an unheated greenhouse/coldframe the minute they poke their heads above soil level. They're up and romping away now, got about a 90% germination from seeds bought around a month ago.

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God made rainy days so gardeners could get the housework done.

Same family.............and yep he llikes a bit of parsley sauce over his roast parsnips!

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My Majesty made for him a garden anew in order
to present to him vegetables and all beautiful flowers.- Offerings of Thutmose III to Amon-Ra (1500 BCE)

I'm,certainly , no expert, but that has the ring of "common sense" to me. We all get so carried away with providing enough warmth for our more exotic plants that we tend to forget those that don't need it.

Reviving the thread to enter my parsnips report. Parsnips seeds pre-germinated in damp k-roll 12 days ago and left mostly in pantry have sprouted. They look like tadpole, tail sticking out of the pointy end of the seed. My seeds were bought last year but the packet says 'packed for year end Sep 2008' so they weren't that outdated. Germination rate is easily over 60%, too much to count. Also the seeds could have germinated earlier as some of these legs or tails are very long and I hadn't bothered to check them sooner. I think you can expect germination from 10 days onwards from the day of pre-germinating. Now I got to figure out what's the best way to sow the sprouted seeds, there was a thread about which way round they go.

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Food for Free

Oh dear! which way round DO they go?!

Any road up - they'll find their way ok.

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Earth laughs in flowers. Ralph Waldo Emerson

www.vegheaven.blogspot.com

Updated November 30th - Mr Stinky's Excellent Adventure (and a Christmas Cake)

It's a bit of a surprise that parsnips continue to exist if some of our stories are anything to go by!! If natural selection had its way...

I don't suppose we're doing a bit too much molly-coddling here? Perhaps we need to be rougher and tougher on them.

I know, the dreaded Parsnips! I'm thinking of dropping them next year as they're getting very affordable at supermarket with their value range.

What we need is a Boltardy Beetroot version (that doesn't easily bolt) of parsnips that doesn't easily get deformed with root disturbance. Can anyone think of a nice catchy name that we can suggest to T&M for them to breed a new parsnips variety .

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Food for Free

have paitence - it does work! Parsnips are just slow to germinate and are also slow growing but it is worth it, Just wait till they are grown and they have had a little frost they are the food of gods! They knock supermarket parsips into the rubbish heap -- you will never go back. Honest gov!

very true yorkshire sam - on my very first day on my new lottie i got given a load of homegrown parsnips by my new neighbour, got em home and roasted them with maple syrup... DIVINE. I hadnt considered growing them before but now i definitely am!

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Hi

I heard it on the radio that you can put the seeds in the fridge/freezer for a couple of weeks before sowing, didnt catch all of the radio prog.

T

I have plenty of pre-germinated parsnip seeds in propagator, and have in the past grown on in cardboard tubes.
This year I was hoping to plant these seeds straight out into my prepared raised bed, currently with fleece over. Does anyone recommend against this or should I get on with it?

I've been told to put the packet in the fridge to fool the seeds into thinking winter has ended when you take them out. I quite like the logic so my parsnips are in the fridge as we speak!

I'm also going to try a method I read about in a magazine this year for my carrots and parsnips. I'll grow them in modules as per usual, then when I go to plant them out I'll dib a deep hole with an old broom handle, fill it with good compost and plant the seedling directly on top. My soil's not great and the idea is that the line of good soil underneath each carrot/parsnip will encourage them to grow straight down without forking. I'll let you know if it works! Has anyone else tried this before?

Hi

I planted my parsnip seeds in compost weeks ago, about five probably, and they are not up. The seed tray is on a sunny window sill.

I am sure I read/heard somewhere, maybe here, that Parsnips take at least seven weeks to germinate.

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Bye

PT

Carpe Diem

The way I see it, if you want the rainbow you have got to put up with the rain!

I planted mine in loo rolls and them plonked them in the heated propagator in the shed (about a week or so ago - maybe 2). Was pottering around yesterday and had a look in the propagator and pretty much every loo roll - there's about 20-30, has got a little green shoot in it. Heated propagator is the way forward for me.

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A simple dude trying to grow veg.

http://haywayne.blogspot.com/ - Updated 30th November

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