[bradwell]

I have always had great difficulty getting parsnips to germinate and grow properly, they usually end up looking like sea mines. So last year I gave up digging them out and left 3 in to go to seed. I have just come back from the allotment where i found about 40 parsnip seedlings growing very happily from the seeds that have dropped from last years crop. Will these grow on do you think?

[Sue33]

Don't see why not, although we sowed ours straight in the soil back in April, maybe you'll get some late ones (they did take weeks to come up though)

[MoreWhisky]

Watch out mentioning parsnips on here we might all get to see DDs photo again

[DD.]

Ahem............

Sorry, just clearing my throat.

[MOLUSC]

This year i put my parsnip seeds (tender and true) on damp kitchen roll until they germinated.
I then placed each (germinated)seed into a toilet roll tube  that was filled with moist compost.
When the roots appeared at the bottom of the loo roll tube i planted them into the ground.
After a while the cardboard tube decomposed.
So far so good

[MoreWhisky]

I sowed straight into the ground (gladiators and white gem)  a month later i resowed in the places that didnt germinate.

I now have 3 lovely complete  rows of parsnips.

[DD.]

I can't hold back any more.

Sowed once, got this.

You asked for it.

[MoreWhisky]

Your so last yr now DD ).

[DD.]

You wait until this year's harvest.

I've found an even smaller person to hold one up.

[Clover]

OK - I feel pretty stupid, but I really can't find a better place to boast about my first ever parsnip and no-one I've told off-line seems the least bit interested in this joyous event 

Dug first one up from a March sowing, direct, 100% ish germination. 

Now, I am not a man, but I did have to get the measuring tape out for this one - it was just over a foot long    and it's only September.  (Couldn't bring myself to measure the girth.)

It was totally clean and cookable not bitter at all, except I'd mashed it up a bit trying to get it out of the earth, which is going to be a bit of a problem if they're all this big.  Maybe I should water first (any advice?) - the earth is so dry that it was v. difficult to get down that far.

[Sue33]

Hi Clover, yes we tend to give the parsnips and carrots a good watering before we dig them up, they should get sweeter as the weather gets colder   

I really can't find a better place to boast about my first ever parsnip and no-one I've told off-line seems the least bit interested in this joyous event 

so annoying when other just don't get it  to them 

[peapod]

Im going to test one of mine and pull it up on Sunday

Cant wait to try em

[DD.]

Mine are staying put until the first frost.

Maybe.

[Lady Lottie]

no-one I've told off-line seems the least bit interested in this joyous event 

Well, how rude!   I'm with you, that it IS truly a joyous event indeed!  So well done you!

I dug one up a couple of weeks ago ...(just to see what was going on down there under the enormous tops - never grown them before) -  and it was huge and delicious to boot!  Is it going to be a bumper year for parsnips for everyone??

[Clover]

Thank you for the support    I think they believe parsnips just grow themselves totally easily and then gently slide onto the supermarket shelves.  They'll be happy enough to eat them (as long as I wash them and put them in a nice clean plastic bag for them - basically, I'm with you on the  )

I was going to wait for the frost too - but I read a post here that someone had already eaten one from an early sowing and it tasted of parsnip so couldn't resist a sneak preview.

Surprising that it's a good parsnip year though - the earth is bone dry, we've had nothing like enough rain and I only watered them during the heatwave once or twice.  Or maybe warm and dry is what they like?

If I water them before digging them up won't it draw in the slugs though?  Do they like parnsips?  It's one of the reasons I don't water my root veg or hardly ever.