URBAN FARMER: Taking an age to germinate and capricious in nature, growing parsnips is not for the highly strung
AS MANY urban farmers will know from bitter experience, sowing parsnip seed, especially at this time of year, is an exercise in optimism, faith and patience.
Patience especially, because the seeds of this sweet root vegetable take forever to germinate (up to four weeks in cold weather), and even then, they do so erratically. In the meantime, the gardener is left peering uneasily at the soil, wondering whether the seeds were too old (they must be fresh) or if marauding slugs or birds have done their worst (try to protect newly-sown seed with slug pellets/taut string). So he or she waits. And waits. And waits.
And then, just when it seems that failure must be conceded, the tiny leaves emerge from the ground. Not all of them, of course, because the parsnip seed is a capricious little thing, but enough (hopefully) to produce a tasty crop for harvesting in the lean months of winter.
Although it’s only late February, OPW gardeners Meeda Downey and Brian Quinn have just finished sowing their first batch of parsnip seed directly into seedbeds in the OPW’s walled kitchen garden. But given this year’s cold spring and the recent spell of wintry weather, urban farmers with cooler gardens may prefer to wait another few weeks before sowing. Parsnips need a soil temperature of 7°C/45F for successful(ish) germination, and hate a cold wet soil.
“The walled garden is relatively protected and the soil is very well-drained, so we’re not worried about it being too cold,” says Brian. But for those who prefer certainties in life, a soil thermometer is worth considering – these are available relatively cheaply from most good garden centres and suppliers including the Organic Centre, (theorganiccentre.ie or 071-9854338).
Carefully planned crop rotation on the part of the OPW gardeners means that the parsnips are being sown where last year’s brassicas once grew. But before sowing, Brian and Meeda spent the best part of a day weeding, forking and then rotovating the soil to get it in prime condition.
“It rotovated beautifully because the soil is surprisingly dry. Then we raked it to a fine tilth, removing any stones or leftover roots to give the seeds the very best chance of germinating,” says Meeda. “Parsnips are deep-rooting so it’s important that the soil is cultivated to a good depth. But they don’t like recently manured soil so we deliberately didn’t spread any on this section of the garden last autumn.”
This spring, the OPW gardeners have set aside three large seedbeds (with three rows per bed) for parsnips, a lot more than they grew last year. Why so? “Because they were so delicious,” say Brian and Meeda in unison.
Another bonus for time-pressed urban farmers like the OPW gardeners is the fact that once the tricky business of germination is over, the parsnip is a relatively trouble-free, low-maintenance crop.
“We’re growing the F1 hybrid Gladiator, which is always a tasty, reliable variety and shows very good canker resistance (one of the few diseases parsnips are vulnerable to), but there are lots of other types,” says Brian.
The variety chosen by Brian and Meeda was one of 21 parsnip varieties which the Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) trialled last year, after sowing seed last April in the RHS garden at Wisley. The very first of the F1 hybrid parsnips to be developed, Gladiator was still considered good enough to keep its “Award of Garden Merit” (AGM) by the RHS judges, along with popular varieties Cobham Improved Marrow, Dagger and Javelin.
New awards were given to six other parsnips, including the latest parsnip introduction, Albion, as well as to Archer, Lancer, Palace, Panache and Picador. Other popular favourites weren’t so lucky, though, and had their AGM withdrawn including Tender and True, a variety so old that it was being grown in allotments back in the 1920s.
Gladiator is a mere stripling by comparison, having been introduced to the growing public in 1982 by Dr Peter Dawson of the British vegetable seed breeding company, Tozer Seeds. Their website, tozerseedsdirect.com, is well worth a look, both for information on many other parsnip varieties, as well as to see their latest vegetable breeds (including a vegetable just launched this year called Flower Sprout, a hybrid cross between Brussels sprouts and curly kale that produces dozens of miniature cabbage-like rosettes).
Back in the OPW’s walled kitchen garden, Meeda and Brian sowed their parsnip seed in rows at intervals of 15cm with roughly 45cm between the rows, and three rows to a bed. The seedbeds are raised off the ground by about 25cm, which helps with drainage and allows the soil to heat up that bit faster in spring. Alternatively, other urban farmers might like to give nature a helping hand and warm up the soil by temporarily covering it in either black plastic or horticultural fleece before sowing.
Brian and Meeda used pelleted seed from Moles, or rather a cluster of several individual seeds sealed together in a bright green coating. “They’re easier to handle and to space,” says Brian. The other, more traditional method, is what’s known as station-sowing, where three-to-four individual seeds are sown together (about 2.5cm deep). This allows for the inevitably erratic germination rate, with any unwanted seedlings (if you should be so lucky) being gradually thinned out, first to two and then to just one (10 to 14 days later). Consider sowing lettuce/radishes in between, to both mark the rows and utilise the space before the parsnips reach maturity.
Yet another option worth considering is chitting the seed before sowing by spreading it out on damp kitchen paper before sealing it in a clear plastic bag, placing it somewhere warm but not hot, and then waiting for the tiny, fragile root radicles to appear (this should take about a week). Once that happens, you can transplant the seeds into their final growing position outdoors, taking extreme care not to damage the developing roots in the process. But be warned that it does require a very delicate hand.
After sowing, special care should be taken to keep the seedbeds weed and slug-free, say the OPW gardeners. Even then, the urban farmer has yet another very long wait in front of him/her, because it takes roughly 34 weeks before those thick, sweet fleshy roots are ready to harvest.
Yes, if ever a vegetable was designed to teach urban farmers the virtue of patience, the parsnip is it. But then, as someone once said, the secret of patience is doing something else in the meantime, which (for most urban farmers) shouldn’t be too difficult.
The OPW’s Victorian walled kitchen garden is in the grounds of the Phoenix Park Visitor Centre, beside the Phoenix Park Café and Ashtown Castle. It is open daily from 10am to 4.30pm
Next week Urban Farmer in Property will cover “Blue 13 Blight” and the strange story of how Sarpo potatoes came to be
Fionnuala Fallon is a garden designer and writer
