Gardening

IF THE parsnips you grew for Christmas werent too good this year, here’s some suggestions that might give you better results in 2026.

1. Buy a new packet of seeds. Many vegetable seeds will last for years, but snips can lose their viability very quickly even in an unopened packet. I’ve learned my lesson over the years and now I buy new seed every time.

And take your time choosing the right variety for your conditions — there are some recommended for heavier and lighter soils, for general or particular disease resistance, and for reliability.

When a vegetable cultivar is described in a catalogue as “reliable,” it often means that it’s not necessarily the tastiest or the biggest, but that it’s probably the simplest to grow.

2. Don’t begin too early. It’s long been traditional to sow parsnip early in the year but I suspect this has more to do with growing roots for the local produce show than for the dinner table.

I never sow mine before mid-April, and even then only if the weather suits. In some years I’ve started them off as late as June, and still had roots of an edible size by December.

As with almost all the annual vegetables we grow in this country, the best idea is to wait until the soil has warmed up.

3. Start them in modules. Gardening books still tell you that snips can’t be transplanted, and it’s just not true any more. That advice might have been right years ago, when it referred to transplanting seedlings from a nursery row or seed tray to their final position.

But today we have the advantage of sowing seeds into cellular trays, root-trainers and the like, so that when you transfer the young plant you’re doing so without disturbing the ball of soil gathered around its roots.

By starting off under cover, for instance in an unheated greenhouse, you avoid the worst of the weather and of the slugs. Parsnips seeds can notoriously be very slow to show, and that’s the other advantage of this method: you’re not wasting garden space on sowings that might never germinate.

4. Buy plants! There are one or two nurseries now that sell parsnip seedlings online from late spring. I’ve tried them, and they worked really well.

They arrive as plug plants, and you simply plant them out at the usual spacing. A bit costly, of course, compared to seeds, but a good back-up in the event of failed germination.

5. Let the snips do their own thing. Bit radical, but worth experimenting with; last year I left an overlooked plant in the ground and its foliage eventually reached my height. It’s now surrounded by seedlings. If I was to thin them out, might they produce next year’s crop?

6. Above all, remember that when your Christmas guests claim not to like parsnips, it’s only because they haven’t yet tasted yours — so be sure to whack a double helping onto their plates.