[gremlin]

I sowed my parsnips late this year as an experiment direct into the bed on 7th April.  About 50% have come up so far, which is much as expected, and I would expect the rest to follow along eventually.

But I have an idea that parsnips don't germinate above 15deg and the weather is about to turn warmer (hooray ) Should I try to keep the parsnip seed bed cool, or just not bother?

Wholesale watering the dry dusty soil will be frowned on t'Committee who are policing our local drought order.

Covering with white fleece is likely to warm the soil even more, unless I build some sort of  tent contraption to allow air to flow under the "sunshade. Parsnip bed is 3m x 5m

Next year I think I will go back to sowing nips in early March, even though this year's March temperatures were like summer.  

Somehow, you just cant win !

[savbo]

Hi there

not sure about the 15C bit. This site

http://www.seedman.com/veggerm.htm#tabii

gives optimum of 65F which I make to be 18C, and a max of 85F which is 29C

Hope they're right cos I've just station-sowed parsnips where I ran out of Richy-tube seedlings...

sav

[JayG]

The vast majority of veg seeds germinate best (percentage-wise and speed-wise) at considerably higher temperatures than they usually experience when sown outdoors in this country, which is not surprising since most of them were originally native to warmer countries than ours (parsnips originated in the Mediterranean area.)

Parsnips are very slow to germinate at low soil temperatures (6 weeks at 5C  ) - optimum temperature is around 20C (depending on which chart you look at!)

[gremlin]

Thanks Jay.   It's not the first time I have been using duff information    

[JayG]

I have a 90 year old friend who gave up growing veg a long time ago but still likes to remind me that parsnips are the first outdoor crop to be sown each year, usually at the end of Feb/beginning of March. 

This tradition was no doubt based on the fact that parsnips need a long growing season to grow to full size, and who knows, maybe early springs were much warmer 50 years ago (he says, pretending he's not old enough to remember that far back!) 

I don't sow parsnips until mid April at the earliest these days, because otherwise you seem to lose more in increased germination time than you gain in potential growing time, and also increase the risk of them not germinating at all.

[savbo]

...and to be honest, I find a lot of my parsnips are actually too big, so I'm not worried if they're not all that size this year...