Germinating parsnips

[Monika]

I know parsnips are notoriously difficult to sprout though, once off, they grow well on our allotment. Anyway, I read somewhere that you can germinate them on damp paper towels and then sow them. So I am trying that this year but so far they are just lying there in the damp, not expanding or wrinkling (like peas, beans or sweet peas would do), no, just lying there. Should I try sowing them in the ground at the same time, just in case? Any tips from anybody? The variety is 'Countess' which is lovely WHEN it grows!

[Johnboy]

Hi Monika,
I do just that nowadays. I make a small petrie dish with the bottom inch of a plastic milk container.
Wrap kitchen paper to give two surfaces hinged.
Place you seeds on the lower layer close the lap and saturate and then tip the dish to drain off all the surplus. I then pop them on the top of my solid fuel CH boiler and they germinate quite quickly and as soon as you see the very slightest white shoot plant that seed into your loo roll and they go away like a rocket. I stress that they should be moved as soon as you see the very first sign. If you leave them too long they will go over the top and the growing radicle will come out of the seed sheath and is then lost.
JB.

[Monika]

Thanks, Johnboy. I will examine my parsnip seeds on the paper towel (just as you described) for any sign of sprouting and act immediately.

[Brenjon]

I put Morning Glory seeds into a small saucer of shallow water to help germiate them. I left them in the saucer for about 3 days when a white tip appeared on them all. When I then planted them out into modules only 6 seeds have produced plants out of 50 planted. Have I left them too long in the water like Johnboy suggested about the parsnip seeds.
Regards Brenjon

[Primrose]

Brenjon, sounds as if you might have drowned your Morning Glory seeds by completely soaking them in water, rather than just keeping the outer skins damp enough to trigger germination by keeping it between two sheets of kitchen paper. I'm not sure they necessarly need a great deal of moisture. I have a batch of self-sown ones peeping through the soil which have been in the earth all winter and they're in a rather dry south-facing border that hasn't had much moisture recently. It's disappointing you've had such a low germination rate. If a white tip showed it sounds as if they might have been ready to sprout. Wonder if your compost was a little too moist and that finished them off.

[Brenjon]

Hi Primrose
I am sure you are on the right track. I think I must have overdone the water
Seeing all the white shoots I thought I was going to get 100% germination. Such is life. To remedy the situation I think I will sow the rest of the seed in the blanks the module tray(all 44 of them).
If that is not a good idea please let me know.
Regards Brenjon
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[Primrose]

Brenjon, you can try this but I'd just be a little wary. In the past I've had seeds not germinate (possibly because the compost was a little heavy and too wet) and being lazy, or short of time, I've tried to reuse the same plugs/pots for a second sowing, , only to find that the original seeds (which were sometimes large ones like courgette or winter squash) had rotted and were causing a blob of mush in the compost. . This obviously makes for an alien environment for the new seeds. I'd poke a few plugs about with a very fine stick or skewer first to see if you can find any signs of rotting material. If you do, I think you'll have to start from scratch with new compost to avoid a further disappointment. Or you could be brave and sow some straight into the soil if the growing spot is warm and sunny. Mine have germinated quite naturally with no help from me.

[Monika]

Of my parsnip seeds, three have shown emerging rootlets so I have planted them immediately as suggested by Johnboy, so I will keep checking them twice a day now!

[Belinda]

I sowed 80 parsnip seeds individually in loo roll centres on the 10th April, so far only five have shown themselves. Should I wait a bit longer or give up and start again, incidentally it is a brand new, foil sealed packet of seed bought earlier this year.

Any advice greatly appreciated.

[Primrose]

Belinda - this is always the dilemma, isn't it? Wait for the laggards or sow again? I sowed my parsnips direct into the ground in late February and they are only now just starting to peek through. Since there are gaps in the row, I've sown more seed in the blank spaces in case the slow germinators don't appear. I'd opt for a "belt & braces" approach and poke a few additional seeds in your vacant loo rolls. You can always pinch seedlings out if they start duplicating themselves and if you leave it much longer you may miss the sowing boat as these roots take so long to grow. Best of luck.

[Monika]

Update: almost all the parsnip seeds have now germinated (after about 10 days on damp paper), so I have sown some in roottrainers and will sow the remainder in the ground - after giving it a good soaking!!!

[GIULIA]

I used to have a fair bit of trouble with these till I discovered two things: the short-rooted variety Avonresister and the trick of filling the drill with multi-purpose compost instead of drawing soil over the top. You do need to keep those compost stripes damp till they emerge but Avonresiser comes through more swiftly than other varieties I've tried and the tiny leaves can push through the compost far more easily than through soil (especially my sandy soil which caps badly). The other advantage is that you can see where the drill is, the dark stripe of compost shows you exactly where to hoe and where to avoid. I use this compost back-fill for most small seed drills now.. just pour some compost in a bucket and walk down the drill sprinkling it in by hand and patting it lightly down as you go. Try that method next time, it's a lot less fiddly but my sowings have done so well I'll be on my knees for a fortnight thinning the darned things now the victim of my own success! Avonresister will never win a 'biggest parsnip' contest but it's reliable, tasty with no rock-hard core to chop out and it has a very long cropping season because it's a fast do-er which doesn't spoil for leaving in the ground. You can be pulling them from late September to the end of January if you sow enough and I actually prefer the more modest size for roasting whole anyway (with a dash of maple syrup dribbled over towards the end of their cooking time of course).

[oldherbaceous]

Dear Giulia, i'm not sure if you do this, but have you tried station sowing your parsnips.
Do everything you are at the moment, but just sow a few seeds at whatever your final spacing would be, that would be about nine inches apart for me, for parsnips.
This does save a lot of time thinning.

[Compo]

I now have some germinating in situ at last, is it too late to sew another crop of parsnips?

Compo

[Primrose]

My experience is that they need quite a long growing season but they will either catch up slightly, or at the end of winter you will have some nice posh whole little roasted parsnips with which to impress your friends. (The supermarkets charge a fortune for these miniature veggies !)