My experiment with soaking parsnip and beetroot seed has worked brilliantly! I described in my post in March how I have soaked the seeds and planted them into half loo roll holders and now I can report that the process has been successful so far.
Boltardy beetroot (left) and Kohl Rabi (right) look so pretty in their loo roll pots - their red stalks glowing in the sunlight. I will be planting them out into the patch now that they have had a good start. The advantage of this method is that you can plant a good row with no gaps. Though it is a bit fiddly and takes time at the sowing stage there is no thinning out to do once they are in the beds as you can plant them in their final spacing. I am just waiting for them to be big enough to split them up as I plant and not waste any precious seedlings.
Parsnips are notoriously difficult to germinate and I am delighted with my experiment (see March) on damp kitchen roll. The seedlings came up almost at once both in the half loo roll holders and the extra ones in a pot of compost. Again I am just waiting for them to be a bit bigger and stronger and then I will be able to plant them out into their final spacing; no need to thin and no waste!
When I plant these out I will give them plenty of compost in the planting hole and handle them carefully, watering them in well and in their final spacing. I think once they have germinated parsnips are pretty straight forward. We have just finished the last parsnip from the damp sand store in our shed - it was a little wrinkly but still once peeled in great condition for a roasting with garlic, ginger and cummin in the oven. It is exactly a year ago that it was sown into the Patch; what a brilliant vegetable!
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