Parsnips in bottles, start of another year.

colinS

https://1drv.ms/w/s!Ar-iKkywOcyHgWmc9UD5OwMe-wX2

I don't know if you will see this thread, I haven't done this for ages. I set it up in Onedrive, it contains pictures and a bit of text. I'm sure you will let me know if you don't see anything.

getmore4less

Can see it but the pics are bit small to work out what's going on.

-taff

Good idea, so you just leave them in the ground all the time?

MysteryMe

Not sure my appetite for parsnips matches the OP's but interesting to see how they have obviously flourished been grown in bottles.

unrecordings

So it's an open topped (plastic) bottle - which trains the root & stops splitting (and/or burrowing things) ?
Do you fill the bottle say 3/4 with compo, sow the seed in that then put the whole assembly in the ground, or is there more of a process getting to the seedling stage first ?

Must say I'm intrigued, but I can't stand parsnips (and I don't have plastic bottles)

Looks ilke a method that might be good for carrots, salsify, horseradish etc etc

colinS

Here's the pictures again, you should be able to enlarge them.

https://1drv.ms/f/s!Ar-iKkywOcyHgW0xTDeRL8RopHOg

If you want more there are other posts by me in this subject in earlier years.

I do leave them in the ground all the summer, so watering can be a problem. I do make more holes in the bottle because once the parsnip are developed the tap root fills the stopper end of the bottle and there is no drainage then. Each year I generally forget to take the stopper off before I put at least one bottle in the ground. I later see what I have done when the water doesn't drain away.

If you are growing parsnips ok the usual way, this method won't be of any help to you, although you could try a row just to see how they do. I started this because I wasn't having much success growing them in the ground and the idea just came to me. I have grown carrots the same way, three carrots to a bottle is the most you can expect, but they can grow quite large. I have started some this year and there should be pictures of them if you look at my other posts on this subject.

This week I found an odd bottle that I had sown late last summer in other part of the garden. The parsnip in it weighs 5 ounces, I haven't eaten it yet, I just hope it doesn't think it's in its second year, it will taste awful it it thinks it is.

colinS

I forgot to answer the question, and it is an important one, about the growing medium in the bottles, you can't just put soil in, it's expecting to much. I gather leaves in autumn and molder them down. The usual mix is half leaf mold or compost, sieved soil and some sand if there's any about. I can start filling the bottles early, if fact some of the bottles in the picture were started in December, but they still didn't germinate until about late Feb. I have racks for the bottles to stand in my greenhouse until the weather gets a bit warmer, then I start to put them in the ground. About thirty of the bottles were started this way, the rest were added on later days and then put in the ground straight away.

unrecordings

Thanks for all that, I like the idea. Wonder if it'd work on a smaller scale for radishes (in a smaller container of course). For some reason radishes are my nemesis, I can never get them to work