In article , Tom Bennett
writes
"sahara" wrote I am not sure when you are supposed to do all this though?
March? I
guess it is a bit too early in the year right now?

My late father grew wonderful parsnips, every year. He used to sow them
in early February (frost permitting and without any special preparation of
the seed) and he gardened 800' up in the Durham Pennines. I've sown them
at the same time, here in SE England, using seeds set in paper tape, and
have had the same consistently good results.

They take a very long time to germinate, and the seed must be fresh (not
the remains of last year's). I find it helpful to plant a radish seed
every couple of inches - the radishes come up quickly and remind me
where the row of parsnips is meant to be. They don't need to be planted
deeply. In the SE I used to plant in April and water the drill before
sowing.

Another piece of received wisdom (from my Grandfather this time) was that
parsnips should never be lifted until they'd had a good hard frost on
them. He said they didn't taste as good before that. With the climate we
have now, waiting for that "decent frost" might be a problem for some!


My mother told me that the frost stimulates production of sugar as a
sort of 'antifreeze'.

--
Kay Easton

Edward's earthworm page:
http://www.scarboro.demon.co.uk/edward/index.htm