Seed from resprouting parsnip

[moggssue]

Sorry to start yet another parsnip thread folks, but this one is a bit different (I hope!) ... I obviously left a few parsnips in the ground from last years batch and they're now shooting up. No doubt theyll be far too old/woody to contemplate eating - do you think there's any merit in leaving them to set seed to use for next year's crop? Will they set seed, and if so will such seed be viable for next year? (The bed they're in won't be used for veg this year, now I have an allotment it'll be a herb/flower bed when I get the chance to organise it!).

[Birdie Wife]

I hope so mogsue, because I'm doing exactly the same thing! I think as long as the variety was not an F1 variety and the bees visit the flowers all together then you should get some viable seed. I haven't tried it before so I can't say how much seed might be viable - in theory, all of it, but there is weather to factor in - there must be pollinating insects about at the time the flowers are open, and then dry weather later on to help the seed heads dry out for storing for next year. Worth a go!

[sewer rat]

Don't be too hasty to write your parsnips as inedible just yet - I woud definitely try lifting one to see - they do keep tremendously well in the ground. They were lifting parsnips up here until fairly recently.

[Epsom Gardener]

I hope so as well moggssue. I am trying this with carrots.

[moggssue]

Don't be too hasty to write your parsnips as inedible just yet - I woud definitely try lifting one to see - they do keep tremendously well in the ground. They were lifting parsnips up here until fairly recently.

OOOhhhh, guess who's going out digging this evening then ... we're having roast chicken so a fresh parsnip would go realllllly well .... and I'll still have 3 or 4 to try for seeds! I thought they would go all hard and woody when they started regrowing - they had definitely died down, there was no sign of them a few weeks ago and I thought I'd had them all but now a few are going great guns.

[muckdiva]

I did this last year from a leftover crop on the lottie when I took it over. The seeds have sprouted, so hopefully it will be a good crop.

[Cutecumber]

*drums fingers on table*

hmmmm, I asked you to wait until April for another parsnip thread but you just couldn't do it - and it was only one more day!!!!

My parsnips are chitting, by the way

[moggssue]

*drums fingers on table*

hmmmm, I asked you to wait until April for another parsnip thread but you just couldn't do it - and it was only one more day!!!!

My parsnips are chitting, by the way

Sorry sorry sorry It wasnt a chitting question though ... honest"!! I promise not to ask another parsnip question until ... ohhh ... May?!