Selfsufficientish.com

stonethrower wrote:nasturtiums, tomatoes, sweet pea, and runner beans all now showing

no sign of life from carrots or parsnips

about how long should they take

Parsnips will take a good month before they appear at this time of year. Longer sometimes!

Just checked back, last year I sowed mine on 18th March and they were up and identifiable in amongst the weeds when I came back from my hols on 2nd May!

Carrots don't take so long but then I sow them later usually when the weather is warmer.

My toms are up and running, chillis have had a slow start but 6 are about ready for bigger pots. Everything else is still in a packet in the cupboard. Leeks next I think, then looking forward to getting the early legumes going at Easter. Last year I started most of my peas and beans in seed trays and then took them down to the allotment... I might try just planting in situ this year, I'm not sure they enjoyed being moved much.

Carrots can take ages to germinate, I do mine on damp kitchen roll before planting them.. Parsnips can also take a while though tbh the success rate I have had for parsnips I have sown straight into the ground has been poor.. I generally replant and replant in the gaps that are left by the seeds that never do anything....

I've tried planting peas and beans in situ and had a lot of bare spaces where rodents have used them as food in the hungry gap (for them). Everyone up here grows peas and beans in trays or peat pots and prepares a well fed, fine bed before they are planted out. It's a bit of a fiddle but I've found I get more peas to grow from trays than from direct sowings. It gives that extra time to feed the soil for them.

I do parsnips in tubs with good compost in a sunny place. But that's because my allotment has a very large hard standing most of the way down the middle and it's the best way to make use of it. But parsnips do seem to love the sunny position and deep, well fed soil (oh and plenty to drink as well). But they won't germinate till the mood takes them. Carrots likewise but they don't seem to need so much feeding.

carrots next up, only parsnips and spring onion left to come up

transferred some of my stronger looking shoots into larger pots and moved them out into a little mini-greenhouse that i bought in aldi

I've got lettuce coming up in the veg patch, but it is under the cover of a plasticky cold frame come cloche type thing I bought from Lidl. Total rubbish and has already come apart and blown around the place so is now weighed down with rocks. Oh well you never know with these things until you buy them!