fall sown parsnips and carrots?

Hi everyone.

So, I'd been growing parsnips for years in a conventional spring sown garden, and found I had poor germination with spring sown seed. One year I found some leftover seed in early fall and tossed it into a perennial bed in clay soils, figuring what would it hurt.

Fast forward to spring and the parsnips from that seeding came up far more successfully than they ever have from spring sowings in the garden. I'm now several years into sowing this way (actually, letting the plants self sow), and it's got me wondering if carrots, which are in the same general family if I remember correctly, might have a similar successful response. Has anyone else tried fall/out of season sowing for carrots or other root crops like beets? What has you experience been like?

Thanks in advance!

I recently watched a youtube from Hoss Tools where he harvested some fall planted carrots. They were planted thickly and allowed grow without any thinning. He pulled a large bunch out of the ground and there were various sizes to be used for different recipes. He made it look so easy. I love that idea because thinning tiny things is hard!

Yes I have been doing this for a few years and it works great, broadbeans and beetroot are good too. We don't usually get a very cold winter (just wet and overcast) so most of the time the beans survive well and are flowering and producing beans way before the current years crop.

Also it avoids most of the problems with slugs if they are out in force after a wet mild winter and some things taste sweeter after a frost.

I'll have to try that. My issue is getting enough carrots to come up to thin in the first place. I've tried seeding with radishes or mesclun mix--which in theory are supposed to serve as nurse crops to keep the soil loose so the carrots come up easily--with no better luck. It's been frustrating, because carrots and parsnips are not just flavors I love and find versatile for cooking, but they can store in the ground with nothing more than a thick leaf or straw mulch.

If you are on clay adding some sand to soil (about 2 inches/5cm ) and incoorperating that in has made a huge difference in my heavy clay garden. Also carrot and parsnips I now sow as soon as I get the seed because they dont have a great viability if they are left too long. Hope that works for you!

Aha! So it might be a seed viability issue, given that purchased seed is harvested and stored the year before. I wonder about the effects of cold stratification on carrot/parsnip viability as well.

Clays are challenging, and I don't think there's sand enough in the world to do much to help here. Not to mention cob and adobe are clay plus sand plus straw that's been shaped and allowed to dry (oversimplified, I know).

I'm finding that adding lots of mulch and compost (courtesy of the poultry and sheep), making raised beds, and planting deep rooted crops and trees has gone a long way to improving tilth and drainage. While it will never be a deep loam, it's come a long way from the brick clays (literally--the farmhouse down the road was built from bricks made on sight and I can make pottery with my clays) that were here initially.

Parsnips and carrots are both umbellifers and will flower after the winter. That's what I found with autumn sown parsnips.
These flowers are great for beneficial insects, so I make sure to leave some every year. This also provides me with fresh parsnip seeds. Carrots hybridization too easily with their wild cousin, Queen Anne's Lace.

Edited for spelling.

Probably the best approach is very climate dependent, so would differ a lot, dependent on the region where you are. I'm in zone 8, and my autumn sown carrots or parsnips would just grow during winter and bolt when summer comes. In zone 6 it'll be different; a youtube vlogger from Nova Scotia I follow sows his parsnips in November and he says they come up after winter.
I should be better with spring sowing, but then my main problem becomes another climate feature: drought. Tiny seeds have a problem germinating during the very dry springtime we have here. In autumn and winter the soil always remains moist and germination is very successful, but in spring direct sowing becomes very hard. My heavy clay soil doesn't help either. This winter was very wet, and I thought I could postpone sowing parsnips until February. Wrong; a month later still almost nothing had come up.
I knew about Bill Mollison's method of using a plank, had never tried it, but this seemed an ideal moment to give it a try. I used a small plank from a wrecked pallet, and immediately noticed the soil underneath remained moist for days on end without me having to water. Some three weeks later I saw small seedlings appearing and I could remove the plank. That's the day the picture shows, more seedlings have surfaced since, and I now need to thin. So, depending on your climate and soil, an old plank can indeed be a big help with germination.  

I sow my parsnips with radish. By the time the radish are pulled, the parsnips are big enough to be mulched.

I recently watched a short video on sowing carrots with a great germination rate.  Unfortunately I don't remember who it was   But, here's what I remember from his instructions :  soak the carrot seed for 24 hours.  Then, mix corn starch with cold water, bring to a boil,  and thicken. As I recall,  he made enough to fill a gallon bag. Drain the soaked carrot seed, put in the gallon back. Add the COOLED corn starch-thickened water. Zip the bag closed, and knead the seeds around in the bag until they're pretty well distributed throughout the gelled water. Take the bag out to the prepared garden bed, snip a very small hole in the corner of the bag, and gently squeeze the seeds, like toothpaste,  in rows in the garden.  Because the seeds had soaked so long, they were up in just a few days. I'm trying that method next year!

What a great tip! Thank you Emilie! I'll be trying it next spring.

Carrots in particular need to have the seeds damp constantly for them to germinate. I like seed tapes so purchased one bag and made my own by using thin toilet paper folded to a strip about 1/2" to 3/4" wide, made some flour paste and too the end off of a Q-tip to dip paste in small spots about 2" apart then dropped 2-3 carrot seeds onto the spots, let dry, then laid out in "V" row. I then applied Seed Starter over the tapes and that seems to hold moisture very well.

Something else you might try on hard-to-start seeds is to soak them overnight in a 50/50 mixture of distilled water & hydrogen peroxide. Liquids soften the hull and the hydrogen gives the germ some added oomph to growing. This method worked very well with Gourd seeds.

Parsnip seeds are super short lived and you have to collect your own. For carrots they do need a long time to come up and need watering meanwhile and yes they hate weed competition. If you sow in autumn then in my climate it is better to sow early otherwise everything only runs to seed in spring.

I knew about Bill Mollison's method of using a plank, had never tried it, but this seemed an ideal moment to give it a try. I used a small plank from a wrecked pallet, and immediately noticed the soil underneath remained moist for days on end without me having to water. Some three weeks later I saw small seedlings appearing and I could remove the plank. That's the day the picture shows, more seedlings have surfaced since, and I now need to thin. So, depending on your climate and soil, an old plank can indeed be a big help with germination.  

Loving the thread. The above is giving a whole new meaning to "planking". I like this one much better.

I've never even tried parsnips, though I remember my mother telling me she had eaten them as a child. Apparently she didn't like them as we were never served them at the dinner table. I didn't even know about turnips until I was grown with children and a girlfriend had one cut into sticks and served with salt. I love them that way, but they decidedly DO NOT like me. Then years later and another marriage, my in-laws served them in lieu of mashed potatoes at the holidays. Served that way was far less harsh to my innards than eating them raw.

When we finally move to live with my youngest on some acreage, maybe I can include a row of parsnips and turnips to the kitchen garden. Maybe I can introduce them to my grandbabies who are growing up far too fast for my tastes.

I'm not a huge turnip fan but I grow them for my sheep: I grow a garden row of them specifically for my woollies for fall treats and broadcast turnip seed along with oats as a nurse crop in my pastures to give new pasture mixes some protection.

Parsnips are a favorite here for people and critters, and they have the added bonus of actually growing well in my brick clays. Not to mention their value as a nectar and pollen source for beneficial insects.

One ways I serve all of these things is as a roasted root vegetable mix (usually potatoes, parsnips, and carrots, with things like sweet potatoes, brussels sprouts, or turnips for variety. Cube your veggies, put them in a parchment paper lined shallow pan, sprinkle with seasonings of choice (salt, garlic powder, and black pepper here), cover tightly with aluminum foil and bake at 350 for 30-45 minutes....

I have never planted parsnips and never will, not here at least. They were here long before me and continue to self sow every fall. If you dig up a garden bed with good soil and weed it insufficiently then there will be parsnips in plenty! I just harvested a big bunch from an area I cleared last year. They make great towers of seeds that flutter on the breeze and land all around, and will even self-sow and take over grassy areas.

Parsnips also have a very high yield per area when grown wildly. I dug up about a pound from a little less than a square foot of earth this fall.

I would love to be able to grow parsnip that reseeds, like Maieshe. In Wisconsin, the parsnip that grows wild is a dangerous weed that will cause blisters if you handle the plant carelessly and then go in the sun. The blisters it causes are not fun. Every year in the spring, our County [Portage county in Central Wisconsin, zone 4b] issues warnings and enlists the help of landowners to find plants to be eradicated.
Otherwise, parsnip are really good in beef stews as they give it sweetness you just don't get from carrots.
My understanding is that garden parsnip is an improvement on the wild one, but is still very closely related. Perhaps it reverts to its bad habits after a few generations in the wild?
Carrots and parsnips, wild or not, have seeds arranged in umbels. They are also biennials: they  grow the root the first year and seeds the second year.
The witloof chicory seems to have some of the same attributes: It takes a long time to grow. The first year, it makes a rosette  or curly leaves and a taproot. That is when it gets brought in for forcing in the winter. The second year, you can get seeds if you replant the root or if you are in a mild enough climate that you can just cover them over the winter. That root used to be dried and ground for fake coffee during the war. Its ability to be forced for a delicious salad was discovered by accident by a chicory farmer in Belgium: The roots he was saving for coffee sprouted during the winter. He ate them and really liked the taste
Perhaps now, November, might be a good time to try and find parsnip seeds, as well as plant some *other* biennials.
https://www.producer.com/news/wild-parsnip-not-your-garden-variety-weed/#:~:text=Wild%20parsnip%20is%20actually%20the,and%20its%20straight%20edible%20root.
The common advice, since it needs a long season is to plant it as early as the ground can be worked in the spring, but some folks are suggesting that the seed needs to be kept cold, so If I had some seeds right now, I'd plant them, just to see. We have 110 frost free days here, so I'd have to plant them now under a very thick mulch or start them super early in the spring to get a good crop reliably.

I really appreciate all of the discussion.  Carrot seeds are tiny, and can't be buried deep, and dry out easily...  I tried the board trick, and it worked better than nothing...but not very well.  My soil is 90% sand...finally I tried covering the seed with a thin layer of very fine compost/leaf mould and watering EVERY day...that has resulted in pretty good germination.  I still don't succeed well with lettuce...but maybe next year

Cécile Stelzer Johnson wrote:I would love to be able to grow parsnip that reseeds, like Maieshe. In Wisconsin, the parsnip that grows wild is a dangerous weed that will cause blisters if you handle the plant carelessly and then go in the sun. The blisters it causes are not fun. Every year in the spring, our County [Portage county in Central Wisconsin, zone 4b] issues warnings and enlists the help of landowners to find plants to be eradicated.

Parsnips here are widely hated too, mislabeled as “poison” parsnip. I have the impression that cultivated parsnip is a bit nicer looking and less forked, but essentially the same plant in other respects. Actually, everyone in my household likes the wild kind better—they may be a little sweeter and more tender.

If they are gathered the right way at the right time, there is minimal chance of being burnt While pulling up the plant, one does not come into contact with the foliage at all, or if so, it is only a light brushing, and even then there is no perspiration (unlike in spring or summer) to transfer the toxic compounds. First the ground immediately to the side is loosened deeply; then, one reaches into the soil, grasps the crown, and pulls gently up and slightly to the side. It can be difficult not to break or cut the roots while loosening the soil though. Then, cut the leaves off with a sharp knife and wash your hands. By working through a patch and only leaving a few to go to seed, perhaps the parsnip menace can be avoided.

At least, that is how I harvest. It still makes for a few wounded or mangled parsnips, but hopefully there are better ways I haven’t discovered or come in contact with yet.

Cécile Stelzer Johnson wrote:My understanding is that garden parsnip is an improvement on the wild one, but is still very closely related. Perhaps it reverts to its bad habits after a few generations in the wild?

That's why I am afraid to grow them. I don't build raised beds because I make way too much compost, so I grow hills of compost on contour and as windrows. I grow carrots for holding up the hills, and try to eliminate wild carrot. That's because I can use my carrot as parsley since my season is never long enough to grow full size carrots.

Unfortunately I have to buy carrots but I get them and potatoes straight from a local farmer, meaning only 2 hours south in Eastern Ontario upper Canada region.

I have had success further south with Hamburg rooted parsley which you can of course eat the leaves as well. I love the taste of parsnips and it is close enough for me and you don't need to wait for the frost.
The best part is these fat rooted carrots survive the cold much better than regular carrots although they are much more expensive to get started.

Having such a short season, I do winter planting: in fall when madly trying to keep ahead of fall cleanup, pick a section that I plan to plant on the top of a compost plateau, and place a plank on top of some branches. When I have time I pull up the plank, and plant, covering with thawed out bags of soil -- if they are relatively dry contractor bags of premade soil they aren't too heavy and can be brought inside. I put the soil on top of my planting and cover with snow. Voilà fini.
For seeds like carrot I mix them with peat moss first which helps tons and tons. Probably because it helps the seeds stay wet while germinating.

My carrot hills provide me with an adequate quantity of super food, and provide me with seeds to keep cover cropping, so the third year the babies are new carrots, and I thin out the carrots and transplant the rejects to cover crop particularly steep places and place rocks on them. The roots are useless of course but they provide greens and new seeds the following year, and sometimes I get a small handful of lovely edible carrots from the ones I thinned out around.

I have been cautioned by a hard knocks horticulturalist not to transplant anything and leave it where God put it.
Such an approach will get you kicked out of a community garden but yes, you may get a few good carrots!

Thanks for letting me share.

Maieshe Ljin wrote:

Cécile Stelzer Johnson wrote:I would love to be able to grow parsnip that reseeds, like Maieshe. In Wisconsin, the parsnip that grows wild is a dangerous weed that will cause blisters if you handle the plant carelessly and then go in the sun. The blisters it causes are not fun. Every year in the spring, our County [Portage county in Central Wisconsin, zone 4b] issues warnings and enlists the help of landowners to find plants to be eradicated.

Parsnips here are widely hated too, mislabeled as “poison” parsnip. I have the impression that cultivated parsnip is a bit nicer looking and less forked, but essentially the same plant in other respects. Actually, everyone in my household likes the wild kind better—they may be a little sweeter and more tender. If they are gathered the right way at the right time, there is minimal chance of being burnt While pulling up the plant, one does not come into contact with the foliage at all, or if so, it is only a light brushing, and even then there is no perspiration (unlike in spring or summer) to transfer the toxic compounds.  

Ha. that's interesting. So you forage for wild parsnips, the kind that can burn, but they are a bit sweeter even if they are more forked. Do you think that by asking the people to go after these wild parsnips to eradicate them, maybe my county is doing it wrong? Do you think that trying to eradicate such a plant in the spring or in the summer, but before they flower might be when the plant is at its most toxic/ juicy?
I was surprised that you didn't mention wearing gloves to do the harvesting. You just try not to touch the foliage. If I had some wild parsnip, I might cut the foliage to the ground, maybe with a weed eater, then rake and compost the tops before I dig around for the nice root. But I don't know: I have never done it.
Hmmm. Come to think of it, if the foliage is as nasty as poison ivy, whacking the tops might send the juice flying everywhere, so scratch that. Same with mowing them.
Maybe  cutting the tops surgically and wearing gloves would be the way to go? My county mentions the wild parsnip not being as dangerous before it bolts, so that tracks with what you are saying. In Wisconsin, that would have to be in year one, since it is a biennial. Where you are, in a wild patch, you might have a mix of year 1 and year 2...
I still want to grow parsnip but since some require a longer growing season than what we have, perhaps taking a chance on planting it late in the fall, in a clean raised bed and putting lots of mulch on it might work? Hmm. Food for thought.

Emilie McVey wrote:I recently watched a short video on sowing carrots with a great germination rate.  Unfortunately I don't remember who it was   But, here's what I remember from his instructions :  soak the carrot seed for 24 hours.  Then, mix corn starch with cold water, bring to a boil,  and thicken. As I recall,  he made enough to fill a gallon bag. Drain the soaked carrot seed, put in the gallon back. Add the COOLED corn starch-thickened water. Zip the bag closed, and knead the seeds around in the bag until they're pretty well distributed throughout the gelled water. Take the bag out to the prepared garden bed, snip a very small hole in the corner of the bag, and gently squeeze the seeds, like toothpaste,  in rows in the garden.  Because the seeds had soaked so long, they were up in just a few days. I'm trying that method next year!

I just might have to try this method of seeding carrots. I have been using the tape with the seeds stuck on but I still haven't been successful growing carrots - or parsnips for that matter.
I have the problem of trying to keep the seeds moist until they sprout. The corn starch should do that!
I copied your text above and put it into my Gardening Folder for 2024!    
THANKS FOR THE POSTING!

You can harvest them with gloves. Many people like them for activities like digging; I just don’t prefer them. Or you can take advantage of the lengthening nights and harvest them by lamplight. Or neither.

I wouldn’t recommend cutting them because the sap will leak out. As I understand it, they need moisture in the form of sweat or sap in order to burn people, both of which are copiously present in late spring and summer when people try to get rid of them. At this time of year, the second year plants are all dead, and only the first year plants remain. If you don’t damage the leaves (until you go to store them), take at least a little effort to avoid them, and wash off your hands, then they will probably not cause any problems.

I also have heard that cultivated parsnips are not substantially different in terms of rashes, but I also don’t have experience growing them. Most gardeners don’t save seed by carrying their biennials into the second year, so I imagine their reputation hasn’t spread far beyond those familiar with the wild plants.

Here in Vermont, the best way to exterminate parsnips is to leave them alone. With no digging, the roots will rot down and aerate the soil, and succession will set in; the meadow will be taken over by goldenrod, joe pye weed, reed canary grass, shrubs, brambles, and other robust weedy perennials. Maybe in Wisconsin it is a bit different, but it holds the same that the way to make perfect parsnip habitat is to dig them up.

They also very readily reflower when cut down, so it is quite hard to prevent their self-seeding. If you harvest every single first year parsnip for two years in an entire field, then plant more vigorous species, maybe that will work… but if someone is to get rid of them, then by my experience, leaving them alone is the best way by far.  

Ra Kenworth wrote:

Cécile Stelzer Johnson wrote:My understanding is that garden parsnip is an improvement on the wild one, but is still very closely related. Perhaps it reverts to its bad habits after a few generations in the wild?

I have had success further south with Hamburg rooted parsley which you can of course eat the leaves as well. I love the taste of parsnips and it is close enough for me and you don't need to wait for the frost.
The best part is these fat rooted carrots survive the cold much better than regular carrots although they are much more expensive to get started.
I have been cautioned by a hard knocks horticulturalist not to transplant anything and leave it where God put it.
Such an approach will get you kicked out of a community garden but yes, you may get a few good carrots!
.

Wow! I had never heard of Hamburg rooted parsley, so I looked it up in the wiki:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parsley
They talk a lot about leaf parsley, of course, but also mention the petroselinum crispum var. tuberosum which is a parsley known for growing a root, and they say that parsnip is its closest relative. Indeed, it *looks* just like a regular parsnip. They say the taste is different, though.
So I looked for who might be selling seeds of it. I found:
https://seedsofitaly.com/hamburg-parsley-root-parsley-berliner-endangered-variety/#:~:text=V42%20%2D%20Parsley%20root%2C%20or%20Hamberg,unaltered%20fragrance%20in%20its%20leaves.
But many other companies sell it too, so I'm not sure how endangered it is.
Along with a nice picture, their comment on the taste is that the  flavor is reminiscent of a mix between celery root, carrots, and parsnips, and you can still use the leaves as parsley. Now, I'm really interested!
Interestingly, this vegetable is endangered. That's another reason to grow it. It also goes by the name Arat root parsley, as sold by Johnny's selected seeds. It seems that although a number of roots look like parsnip and have a flavor at least *reminiscent* of parsnip, they belong to many different families.
Parsnip [Pastinaca sativa],
Hamburg root parsley [petroselinum crispum var. tuberosoum],
salsify [Tragopogon porrifolius]
celeriac [Apium graveolens var. rapaceum] roundish and knobby, from which my mom used to make céleri rémoulade.
Here is a grouping of recipes using celeriac, or céleri rave, but in French.
https://chefsimon.com/recettes/tag/c%C3%A9leri-rave
All are white roots; another thing they have in common is that they are ssllooww to germinate.

Henry Jabel wrote:If you are on clay adding some sand to soil (about 2 inches/5cm ) and incoorperating that in has made a huge difference in my heavy clay garden. Also carrot and parsnips I now sow as soon as I get the seed because they dont have a great viability if they are left too long. Hope that works for you!

That's interesting... My mentor farmer in Maine Organic Farmers' & Gardeners' Assn (MOFGA) lo, these many years gone, always had a few old saws at the ready. One was "Sand in clay, money thrown away; Clay in sand, money in hand." Interesting to hear positive results from doing it bass'ack'ards. 😁

I am very surprised by your experience, I will try this this year! Thank you

It seems parsnip is a native wild plant here (the Netherlands, western Europe), as well as the carrot (wild carrot, queen Anne's lace), and was already grown for food in prehistory. But during the 20th and early 21st century parsnips got forgotten. It's only since a few years you can find them in supermarkets, not only in organic health food stores.

Now more people know the parsnips, they want to grow them in their garden. Often I hear gardeners say that it's a difficult vegetable to grow. When I first rented my allotment garden (I took it with everything growing there, left by the man who rented it before), those large parsnip flowers were there. I liked them and let them go to seeds.

Then (in Autumn) I took some of those umbels and put them on a garden bed, where I wanted the parsnips to grow. And it worked! The next year I did this again and it worked even better (probably because of the weather, more rain).

So now this is my method for growing parsnips.
With carrots I'm not that lucky ...

We had a warm spell last February and the ground surface melted. I planted carrots and lettuce. Winter returned, ground frozen and snow on top. But once spring returned in truth, the lettuce and carrots sprouted just fine.

My 'trick' for lettuce is to not plant it. I take the seed and scatter it on loose soil and just leave it. It sprouts fine. No burying the seed. easiest is to save the whole plant from the prior year and whack it against your hand, scattering the floaty seeds around the garden. It ends up as an early ground cover and I pull most of it for mulching other things.

I have a soil blocker. So for shits and giggles I put parnsip seeds in them just to get them to the germination stage and carefully planted them to the correct spacing.
Note that I said carefully?   And just to germ stage (ya know , where the seed sends out a root?)

Works pretty well. No thinning.  I know its germinated.
Yes, they will fork if the plant is disturbed.  So be gentle!

Today I harvested my parsnips.
The first frosty night was there (last night) and the soil at the allotment garden was frozen ... So I thought: if it goes on freezing like this, I can not get the parsnips out!
Most of them were in one bed. Some were in the next bed between raspberries ... I did not get all of those out.
Because I'm totally new at growing annual vegetables I am very happy with my parsnips, even though they are only about a dozen. Four of them look like real parsnips (same size as the ones that are for sale), the others are smaller, or have a funny shape ... One had four legs!

I sliced the larger parts and they're in the dehydrator now. Of the smaller parts some were in my risotto today, some in a smoothy, and some waiting for tomorrow in the fridge.

I have never gotten parsnips to sprout, after several tries. Obviously doing something wrong. Any hints?

The wild parsnips, I am noticing, tend to be longer, and less tapered, than the cultivated kind. The medium sized are the easiest to pull up, so it makes me wonder if thinning does more harm than good. Every time I try to pull a large one, I can never get the bottom (but maybe that’s a good thing for the soil). I told a friend about fall sowing parsnips from wild seed and she said they grew very easily.

I wonder how best to store them, especially the ones that are broken off, which are a lot more than should be ideally. Maybe drying? Sort of like how tinpsila/prairie turnip is stored…

Thom Bri wrote:I have never gotten parsnips to sprout, after several tries. Obviously doing something wrong. Any hints?

Could you elaborate?
When have you been sowing them? Have you been using a seed packet, gathering from someone else's garden, or from the wild? Maybe the seeds are bad? If you have sown them from a commercial source then have you tried switching to some other company/source?

Hopefully we can solve this!

I've grown and eaten parsnips for years and never knew they burned or were considered a scourge.  The more diminutive ones I tempura batter and fry in coconut oil. Delicious little rat tails!

I've also had a hard time getting carrots to grow.  I got one to grow, it was tiny and twisty and tasty, the three Ts haha.  And I use the feathery tops for soups, the leaves feel like feathers to me.  Anyways I think when I try carrots again in springtime I'm going to do the seed soaking method first, because yeah, they're hard to get to grow.

Winter crops here are kind of challenging because they sort of go into stasis, at least lettuce and radishes do, that is what I learnt.  So this year I'm trying lettuce again, but since I don't get enough sunshine on this balcony I just got some growlights from my MIL and will see what happens.

I'm in sand country here, and you'd think that parsnip would grow well, but I've always had difficulty starting it. Pastinaca sativa that is left to its own devices [like past the  seed stage] may revert to the nasty 'wild' parsnip that will give you blisters and I have not grown it particularly for that reason.
I don't use parsnip extensively, so it is always easier to buy the few I need in the fall. For them and carrots and also beets that take a long time germinating, there is a trick:
Use one of these cardboard egg cartons
https://www.farmandfleet.com/products/1535663-little-giant-12-pack-egg-flats.html?blaintm_source=google&blaintm_medium=pla&gad_source=1&gclid=Cj0KCQjwsc24BhDPARIsAFXqAB357PwTDl77azck6HA8IFQwd1sZdcOZ5PWG1AgJcIbjnUYXyNwTaNEaAkdYEALw_wcB&gclsrc=aw.ds
and discard the top. With a drill or a strong pencil, poke holes at the bottom of the egg carton and fill with good starting soil. with that pencil, make a little indentation in the soil and place one seed per egg cradle. The hole is to allow for root expansion, so you should place the whole bottom part of the egg carton on top of a deep tray with good soil and keep the whole thing good and damp.
Beets will start in only 3 days if you first soak them in warmish water. I've only used the system for beets and I will again. As the cardboard soften and decomposes, you can plant each of the tiny pots with what's left of the cardboard right into the soil. Water well right away and try to gently mulch close to the tiny plants with  finely chopped straw, like what you might use for your mushrooms.
https://www.tractorsupply.com/tsc/product/greenway-farmstraw-fine-shred-animal-bedding-gwfsf20-1643695?store=194&cid=Google-Shopping-Sustain&utm_medium=Google&utm_source=Shopping&utm_content=Sustain&gad_source=1&gclid=Cj0KCQjwsc24BhDPARIsAFXqAB1OjKFoUWyM-MafEPZoEVOgjnYF1DfSDvN-7EvgbNU0qSv2nHdXZQUaAjrnEALw_wcB
Be gentle and poke a hole in the ground if the taproot has grown too big and sticks out.
I don't know about sowing carrots this way but it should work. The parsnip seeds should also sprout sooner if soaked but I confess I have not tried it. Only with beets, and it was really surprising to see them sprout in 3 days!

Maieshe Ljin wrote:

Thom Bri wrote:I have never gotten parsnips to sprout, after several tries. Obviously doing something wrong. Any hints?

Could you elaborate?
When have you been sowing them? Have you been using a seed packet, gathering from someone else's garden, or from the wild? Maybe the seeds are bad? If you have sown them from a commercial source then have you tried switching to some other company/source?

Hopefully we can solve this!

Just seeds I bought on a whim at the local Menard's store. I try to follow the instructions on the packet. Carrots planted beside them grew fine.

Cécile Stelzer Johnson wrote: I'm in sand country here, and you'd think that parsnip would grow well, but I've always had difficulty starting it. Pastinaca sativa that is left to its own devices [like past the  seed stage] may revert to the nasty 'wild' parsnip that will give you blisters and I have not grown it particularly for that reason....

That problem does not occur here very often. For years I did not even know! When I first read about it I did a search for more info. I found out the parsnip plants only give the 'burns' in hot (and dry) weather. Because in the season when parsnips are ready for harvest here it is mostly cold and wet I never had (or have) problems touching the plants, pulling out the whole plant to get the root.

Inge Leonora-den Ouden wrote:

Cécile Stelzer Johnson wrote: I'm in sand country here, and you'd think that parsnip would grow well, but I've always had difficulty starting it. Pastinaca sativa that is left to its own devices [like past the  seed stage] may revert to the nasty 'wild' parsnip that will give you blisters and I have not grown it particularly for that reason....

That problem does not occur here very often. For years I did not even know! When I first read about it I did a search for more info. I found out the parsnip plants only give the 'burns' in hot (and dry) weather. Because in the season when parsnips are ready for harvest here it is mostly cold and wet I never had (or have) problems touching the plants, pulling out the whole plant to get the root.

In the States, a number of crops have escaped into the wild and reproduce without our help. Coming from France, I was not aware of this quirk in parsnips either until our town asked us to volunteer to pull it out where we see it.
The juice of the plant past its root growing stage, when allowed to make contact with human skin will bring a nasty reaction with sunlight. This extreme photosensitivity is an immune system reaction brought on by sunlight because of that juice.  When we find the plant, we have to wear rubber gloves to pull the plant out but there are some patches where there are just too many in the ditches. I do not know how long the photosensitivity lasts and I don't want to find out ;-)
If your skin comes in contact the recommendation is to wash abundantly with soap and avoid the sun for a while.
They use total herbicides to eliminate those patches. The seed viability is 1-2 years, so it may need to be repeated.