Allotment Gardening Advice Help Chat
Growing => Grow Your Own => Topic started by: logi06 on October 22, 2017, 12:35
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I removed as many stones as possible and turned soil over a few times in my raised beds before I plants seeds.
Thus is the fourth year I have tried these. I don稚 know what else to try
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Hello, I had carrots that went a similar way this year in a new raised planter. I was told it was probably because the soil was too rich for them.
I'm just starting out so probably getting lots wrong, but gotta start somewhere :-)
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Thanks I have not changed the soil in four years, it痴 so frustrating
I may give up on parsnips,
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This year a lot of us up here have had problems with parsnips. Everything from not germinating at all to not growing much. Perhaps you are one of us who have had problems.
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My advice, (for what it's worth), is to sow the seed in richie paper pots, about 2" in diameter, (a neutadol spray can is what I used), make it approx 6" in length. when the true leaves show put it in the plot, pot and all, don't wait too long as the root grows at an alarming rate. All my parsnips came good this year.
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I removed as many stones as possible and turned soil over a few times in my raised beds before I plants seeds.
Thus is the fourth year I have tried these. I don稚 know what else to try
How deep are your raised beds?
Is there a base lining?
What is underneath the beds?
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For next year you might want to consider Imperial Crown. I've got heavy clay soil with some stones and these are like tunnelers, about 3inch across at the crown and seem to have pushed past stones. Countess on the other hand have been thin and fork at anything more than a pinhead.
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Sowing/planting into dibbed foot deep holes filled with fine compost is the only way I have ever discovered to get a 90% fork free parsnip bed, and that's befor I even talk about dry or wet beds. Interesting to hear above that the odd variety might be a bit more determined.
It's a bit of a nuisance at planting time, but it really doesn't take much time. They're fine big vegetables and deserve as much care as a cabbage. Carrots are different in my mind and I'm happy with 60% of them out of doors.
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Apologies gstrong but I laughed so hard at the pic of your carrot, I am an adult honestly but found it so amusing.
Small things please small minds I guess :tongue2:
Not had my lotty long and going to try carrots and parsnips next year so come sept\oct I probably won't post much because i'll be on my back in my lotty in fits of laughter at my attempts, pics to follow...
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Someone on the site suggested a method for growing carrots, which I am going to try next year, which may well work for parsnips too. What they suggested was to prep the soil and then put the string line down where you want to grow your crop then take a spade and put it in to the top of the spit rock back and forth to create a V shaped trench all along the line then back fill with a mix of fine compost or peat and builders sand. You then sow the seeds onto the centre of this mix cover lightly with the growing medium using a sieve and grow them.... sound like it will work the person said they get great carrots so why not parsnips ?
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It was my 4th sowing of the season before I got good germination of parsnips. I didn't expect too much from the April sowings but was starting to get depressed when nothing was showing after two May sowings. It was my desperate end of May effort that was successful and we now have a great crop that'll last until spring
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I have also not had good results and poor germination. Last week I did some research and found out that the seeds do not keep and you should not use seed more than a year old . In addition they will not germinate below 10C which means for most of us not before mid to end May. I also did not know that they are biennials and if left in the ground will flower the following year producing the seed that you need for your next crop. So I will make sure that I buy seed packed in 2017 for next year and plant no sooner than mid May.
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This is the first year I ever had any issues with germinating parsnip seed: it usually comes up like mustard and cress, but this year, three sowings before I even reached double figures :wacko: :wacko: :wacko:
I have been told it could be due to a sudden cold snap as soon as the seedlings popped out of the seed case killing them off.
I just hope that those leaves actually lead to decent roots, or we shall be buying some for festive meals for the first time in many years
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Definitely a bad year for germination here too, but at least earlier sowings give quite a wide window for more seed if the first batch suffer. As seeds rarely carry over for a year, it's no loss to keep on sowing. It's the long germination period that is the most frustrating
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Someone on the site suggested a method for growing carrots, which I am going to try next year, which may well work for parsnips too. What they suggested was to prep the soil and then put the string line down where you want to grow your crop then take a spade and put it in to the top of the spit rock back and forth to create a V shaped trench all along the line then back fill with a mix of fine compost or peat and builders sand. You then sow the seeds onto the centre of this mix cover lightly with the growing medium using a sieve and grow them.... sound like it will work the person said they get great carrots so why not parsnips ?
That's exactly what I did this year as the bed for my snips this year was quite heavy still. I've got a good batch of Gladiator, all around 6-9 inches long so far that I've pulled.
As other's have said though, it's not been a great year for Parsnips, I had to make two sowings and other people at our site have got none this year. A few people had issues with their carrots too.
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I sowed Gladiator on April 27th straight into the ground, and harvested these today.
I left the fork in the picture to give a scale reference.
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Nice parsnips there ! And how black is that soil my soil has less colour to it and less stones very fertile but strange soil to work with. It is a bit like making up cement get the moisture right and it is great one drop too much though and you cannot work with it.
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Two parsnips dug yesterday, grown next to each other in the same bed - one presumably hit a stone :nowink:, the other one didn't. :)
I could go to the trouble of either trying to sift the stones out or using one of the other techniques to ensure an unobstructed root run, but I find it easier to pretend that doing nothing is both easier and makes digging them up sooo much more exciting! :unsure: :lol:
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Its not been a good year for me in East Yorkshire with poor germination. The ones that did germinate, however, have grown enormous - Tender & True - using the dibber method described earlier. I saved seed a couple of years ago and had very good germination from T & T as it is open pollinated, so I think I'll try that again next year. The method described for carrots also works well here.
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I saved parsnip seed four or five years back and some escaped before I could get it in the paper bag. They came up everywhere, and even now I get random parsnips.. two this year... so do they know they are not supposed to be viable after the first year? :lol: :lol:
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Mine are very hit and miss this year. I have dug up beautiful, long, huge parsnips and the next ones to them in the row have been almost circular with a lot of roots growing from them, or mis-shaped lumps that are totally unusable. Fortunately I grew quite a lot, so should still have enough to use through the winter.
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Apologies gstrong but I laughed so hard at the pic of your carrot, I am an adult honestly but found it so amusing.
Small things please small minds I guess :tongue2:
Not had my lotty long and going to try carrots and parsnips next year so come sept\oct I probably won't post much because i'll be on my back in my lotty in fits of laughter at my attempts, pics to follow...
Glad I didn't post a pic of a rather (actually very) rude parsnip I once grew. :lol:
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Out of three sowings I have the grand total of one parsnip. Still in the ground. Intend to have it Christmas day. I do hope it is a decent one as it is my only one. Well done you on getting them to germinate this year.
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My best parsnips ever, this year. They were sown into 3 car tyres filled with the contents of last year's greenhouse growbags. The tyres are completely crammed with big parsnips, each trying to shoulder ....
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My best parsnips ever, this year. They were sown into 3 car tyres filled with the contents of last year's greenhouse growbags. The tyres are completely crammed with big parsnips, each trying to shoulder ....
Wow I will have to try this next year
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I'm glad I'm not the only one who can't grow good parsnips tried paper pots peat pots direct sowing that was a dead loss so I looked up a bit of info on growing parsnips and this what I'm going to try next season :unsure:
I found a piece of grey plastic 6x8 pipe pipe going to cut it into around foot lengths put place in the razed bed about 4inches in the ground fill the pipe with a compost mixture then sow 2 seeds per pipe probably cover the end of the pipe with cling film till they get going keeping an eye on the germination and watered not to let the compost dry out dry out
I'm going try the same method with carrots in smaller pipes you can usually find some old plastic waste pipes going cheep in the recycling centres builders offcuts all it needs is a good clean avoid the toilet waste pipe though
as I said this is going to be a trial this method for me but as I can't grow parsnips for toffee there's no loss only my pride to "call myself a gardener " :lol:
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HI i am new to the forum but have allotment gardening for over 45 years I have a solution try pipe's which should be 12 inch long and 4 inch wide with sieved compost this may help all the best for 2018 .
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My parsnips were not too good this season, poor germination and the ones that grew were too large and runty!
Anyway my wife arrived home from Aldi with a pack with five perfect small parsnips in it, cost 19p, she said why bother growing them as they had the perfect taste as well!
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Absolutely true of course, but where's the challenge in that? ;)