growing seeds in paper pots

Pak choi is fine sown early as part of mixed salad as it is cut young, but if you want full size ones end of July is probably better  as then it is less likely to bolt

"Yet the second lot, sown in summer, always do better.... Oddly enough"

My understanding is that Asian veg, like these, expect day/night length that is about equal - in the tropics it will be 12 hours day, 12 hours night.

As such if you sow in the Spring they will be experiencing relatively long days and this is what causes them to "bolt".

I sow mine in late Summer, and this seems to alleviate the problem.

I use old toilet rolls, brilliant for sweetcorn. I have never tried starting any root veg off in pots though.  I have never had any trouble sowing them directly. What are your reasons for wanting to start the root veg in paper pots rather than sowing directly? (this goes to anybody not just the original poster!)

"What are your reasons for wanting to start the root veg in paper pots rather than sowing directly?"

Control - as in the germination takes place relatively speedily. When I sow in the open the time to germinate is variable - depending on when it rains etc. This makes getting crop-continuity difficult. I also tend to get a row full of plants when sowing in the open, rather than the handful I can achieve by planting in pots. This doesn't really apply to Parsnips, where I can sow all that I want for the Winter season in one go, but for successional crops, and crops that have a short harvest interval - many Summer crops only have a harvest-window of a couple of weeks - its hard to control the timing when sowing in the open.

I have heavy soil, so growing parsnips in paper pots enables me to make a crop-bar type hole and drop a plantlet in (which I could also do with crow-bar and station-sowing of seed.

"What are your reasons for wanting to start the root veg in paper pots rather than sowing directly?"

I lost quite a lot to slugs this year when I grew them direct, even using pellets. Using the paper pots meant some of my stuff got big enough to have a fighting chance by the time I put them in the ground. It was a bit time consuming but I now have some brill parsnips. It was also useful getting them germinated in the warm and then putting them out. In the past my parsnips have taken so long to germinate they get swamped by weeds.