Author Topic: Volunteer parsnips!  (Read 7836 times)

caroline7758

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Volunteer parsnips!
« on: November 23, 2015, 16:11:47 »
After years of failing to grow nice shaped parsnips, I dug up some that had grown from seed left behind from last year today- and guess what- nice and straight and blemish-free! They'd been growing under my green beans and getting regularly trampled on, but they were still much better looking that any of the ones I took care with! Not sure what the lesson is here!

Tee Gee

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Re: Volunteer parsnips!
« Reply #1 on: November 23, 2015, 17:17:45 »
Quote
Not sure what the lesson is here!

Fresh seed!

We are always being told only to use fresh seed so you can't get any fresher than self sown seed!

I am not always sure that purchased seed are always fresh.

Consider when the seed is available from the plant until the time they are put up for sale, then if you buy your seed early  its perhaps another couple of months before sow them, meaning they could be over a year old before they are sown!

Its just a thought  :clock:


caroline7758

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Re: Volunteer parsnips!
« Reply #2 on: November 23, 2015, 18:07:51 »
Yes, I'm certainly going to save some seed again this year, or maybe just let them self-sow again.

gray1720

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Re: Volunteer parsnips!
« Reply #3 on: November 24, 2015, 09:00:57 »
I had a lot of volunteer parsnips when I took my plots on first, much fewer now that there's fewer vacant plots, but they were a very welcome addition to the crops!

Adrian
 
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galina

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Re: Volunteer parsnips!
« Reply #4 on: November 24, 2015, 17:32:49 »
How did this work?  If I understand you correctly Caroline, the seed was shed sometime in 2014 and roots dug up recently.  Did I read this right?  If the seed was produced in 2015, would any self-sown parsnips still be very small plants?

Parsnips are biennial and will throw up a flowerstalk in their second year.  If they are germinating really late, because they only 'hit the ground' after shedding late in summer, will they continue growing roots after winter in their second year without flowering?

I have never tried this with parsnips.  But If I sow turnips too late or radishes, all I get is leaves the following spring, the roots don't grow bigger after winter.  The roots get woody rather than growing and prepare to flower, useless for the pot.  Is it different with parsnips?   


:wave:

caroline7758

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Re: Volunteer parsnips!
« Reply #5 on: November 24, 2015, 18:36:03 »
Yes, I left some parsnips to flower last year then pulled them up and put them in a pile near my compost bin. The seeds were left behind when I finally cleared the stems away. The ones I pulled up yesterday were in a clump with four or five very small ones but three nice shaped and decent sized, so overcrowding doesn't seem to have bothered them either!

galina

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Re: Volunteer parsnips!
« Reply #6 on: November 25, 2015, 07:53:27 »
Thank you Caroline.

Vinlander

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Re: Volunteer parsnips!
« Reply #7 on: November 29, 2015, 11:12:07 »
Volunteer parsnips have one more thing going for them - they are surface-sown.

This topic has come up before: the shape of a parsnip seed stops it rolling into a crack - it obviously 'wants' to be as near the surface as possible - if you let it do this it will germinate well even when it is more than 1 year old.

The downside is that there's a risk of it washing away in a wet year - so a few extra to thin out later is a good idea, and you will be doing this anyway if you aren't confident it's fresh.

Same applies to any other seeds that look like plates - use surface sowing if the packet is a bit old...

Cheers.
With a microholding you always get too much or bugger-all. (I'm fed up calling it an allotment garden - it just encourages the tidy-police).

The simple/complex split is more & more important: Simple fertilisers Poor, complex ones Good. Simple (old) poisons predictable, others (new) the opposite.

galina

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Re: Volunteer parsnips!
« Reply #8 on: November 29, 2015, 12:30:52 »
Volunteer parsnips have one more thing going for them - they are surface-sown.

The downside is that there's a risk of it washing away in a wet year - so a few extra to thin out later is a good idea, and you will be doing this anyway if you aren't confident it's fresh.

Cheers.

Very interesting.  Unfortunately they'd get wind dispersed far and wide here if I did that.  Is there any merit surface sowing and covering with cloches to prevent wind dispersal?  And what about carrot seeds, which I find much trickier to germinate?  I wonder.

Just to side-track a bit.  I used to have very erratic results sowing parsnips, until I learned to delay sowing until May.  Seems then it is warm enough (here) for germination to happen quickly. And the parsnips are still plenty big enough with the growing time left.  As we are a bit exposed and on cold clay soil, I guess others could easily sow a month earlier and get good germination, but not in February, as some books suggest.  Does the timing of volunteer parsnips suggest they have germinated in warm soil?



   

theothermarg

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Re: Volunteer parsnips!
« Reply #9 on: November 29, 2015, 19:07:20 »
Got a friend that swears her volunteer parsnips are better so when a near miss to the compost bin started flowering I let it. The flower spike was impressive and the bees loved it but alas the weather ruined the plan and snapped it off  :BangHead: . Think I will let a few flower in a odd corner next year.
I think Feb is ridiculously early for parsnips too although I do attempt a few early ones under a cloche but notice the later sown ones always catch up.
marg
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jimc

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Re: Volunteer parsnips!
« Reply #10 on: December 01, 2015, 02:26:12 »
Although I am in Oz, I think volunteer parsnips are the way to go. I had difficulty just getting seeds to germinate until about 10 years ago when I did get a few up after another new packet of seeds.
I let a couple go to seed that year and have been pulling parsnips ever since, not sowing a single seed (reserved except for the times I want to go to a new area and will pull some fresh seeds and just broadcast them around). In fact now I can get parsnips basically from anywhere in my garden, and for most months of the year.
It is good when the weeds you have happen to be crop plants just needing a thin out.
I do the same for carrots, silver beet, parsley, one type of oak leaf lettuce (which has been in the family since 1960) and celery.
On another thread there are comments about cultivation of leeks but I thought my comments would fit here better. I planted leeks about 10 years ago and had about 24 germinate and have never had to replant. The first year they weren't all used so some went to seed which naturally spread seed along the leek bed. I also found my Musselburg leeks naturally split when left in the soil so each bulb becomes a small conglomeration of bulbs next year. I now limit my crop to about 100. I have given away many bundles of naturally germinated seedlings as well as hands full of seeds each year.
As I said, weeding crop plants can be a problem when too many germinate or come up in an area reserved for another crop.
Another advantage of these types of crops going to seed is to encourage many pollinators to the garden, mostly good bugs which deter the bad bugs.
The other advantage is these deep root type plants also draw on mineral reserves from deep in the soil which can then be recycled by composting the plants for use around next season's crops.

Digeroo

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Re: Volunteer parsnips!
« Reply #11 on: December 03, 2015, 08:21:40 »
I had some parsnips self seed in autumn 2014.  Left them as I thought they would be good for 2015.  Big mistake, they ran to seed in May and when I got back from holiday the allotment was covered in six foot high plants.  There were thousands of them.

Vinlander

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Re: Volunteer parsnips!
« Reply #12 on: December 04, 2015, 17:48:35 »
I had some parsnips self seed in autumn 2014.  Left them as I thought they would be good for 2015.  Big mistake, they ran to seed in May and when I got back from holiday the allotment was covered in six foot high plants.  There were thousands of them.

I find that allowing volunteers to breed on can mean that bolting can happen over a longer period though the upside of this is that some of them won't bolt in the second year but in the third (though there is a bit more canker and pest damage it can still be a useful crop).

It may also be that packeted seeds that are a bit old but germinate successfully (with the help of surface sowing) are outriders in the genetic mix - and again they may bolt early or late...

Anyway the fact is that if you pull out the bolted ones without wrecking the bed you may find that the remaining plants will be bulked up and ready when you want them.

Cheers.
With a microholding you always get too much or bugger-all. (I'm fed up calling it an allotment garden - it just encourages the tidy-police).

The simple/complex split is more & more important: Simple fertilisers Poor, complex ones Good. Simple (old) poisons predictable, others (new) the opposite.

Vinlander

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Re: Volunteer parsnips!
« Reply #13 on: December 04, 2015, 18:08:21 »
Re: Surface sowing.

Unfortunately they'd get wind dispersed far and wide here if I did that.  Is there any merit surface sowing and covering with cloches to prevent wind dispersal?  And what about carrot seeds, which I find much trickier to germinate?  I wonder.   

I am on clay and I find that once the beds have been watered (carefully) the flat seeds are pretty well glued to the soil surface and wind doesn't bother them - though a real downpour will wash them away if it comes on before the root has a purchase.

On other soils the solution could be as simple as scattering some twiggy prunings around the bed - they have an amazing ability to slow the wind at the soil surface - I regularly use them to hold down newspaper and they are hardly ever blown away even when they could slide straight over the paper - even less when they are resting on soil. Any kind of flat-bottomed depression will suit the seeds and reduce the wind even more.

As to carrots - I have trouble with them but I put it down to drying at the soil surface ('cos it tends to be later in the spring).  Sowing within a carrot-fly barrier definitely helps.

The twig method would probably help them too, but what they do in Africa is put a plank over the row to keep the sun off and the moisture in, but you MUST lift the plank at least once a week and scrutinise - preferably catching the tiniest hint of a folded stem where the seed leaves are still underground. Apart from the risk of them dying without sun there is the fact that slugs really love covered soil.

Cheers.
With a microholding you always get too much or bugger-all. (I'm fed up calling it an allotment garden - it just encourages the tidy-police).

The simple/complex split is more & more important: Simple fertilisers Poor, complex ones Good. Simple (old) poisons predictable, others (new) the opposite.

jimc

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Re: Volunteer parsnips!
« Reply #14 on: December 05, 2015, 02:06:51 »
For carrots Vinlander, I lay shade cloth over them and start checking them each day after about a week. Helps keep the surface moist so the seeds germinate easily.

jennym

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Re: Volunteer parsnips!
« Reply #15 on: December 05, 2015, 08:41:57 »
Parsnips. For years I messed about doing fancy stuff with soft soil and cardboard rolls to start them off and allsorts. I had very heavy clay soil.
Best results I had are a combination of some of what's been said - I sowed them in mid May when it was starting to get warm, on roughly scratched clay soil (I was too busy or lazy to dig it at the time).
The soil had been dug over(only just a bit) the year before, and put a scaffold board on them, took it up a week later not even thinking about what was underneath (I just wanted to use the scaffold board).
I don't know how long after, not long, maybe a week or so I saw seedlings coming up.
Watered them gently almost every day for a few weeks then abandoned them for my fruit.
Got absolutely lovely parsnips late autumn/winter.
Lucky me has soft sandy loam now so no problem at all, just keep things moist.

 

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