This is my first time harvesting parnsip seeds! I’ll try to keep the info as clear as possible, sorry if I ramble.
Parents: I planted 4 varieties from “Annie’s Seeds”, parent varieties are harris model, all american, hollow crown, and halblange. There may be wild parnsips or relatives growning nearby, but I have yet to see any, for better or for worse.
Population: About 10 plants made it to flower and seeds. All flowers I checked were messy with pollen, so afaik theres no CMS in my plants. 10 plants from commercial seed is not enough for healthy genetic diversity, the 1 round of selection for hardiness is nice but if I were to plant just these seeds in isolation they would quickly get inbred and depressed, maybe in just 1 or 2 generations. So exchange is essential, and I believe the one round of selection I’ve done is valuable already.
Planting: I planted them in spring last year (2025), and some in summer? Maybe even into fall, but I think by fall all of my seeds had expired. They survived over winter without issue. Oh and I also fall planted some in 2024, and ate all of those, which were quite good. Planting areas had some watering to get started and then just rainfall once they were established.
Climate and soil: grown in Asheville, NC, on the slight slope of one of our smaller mountains. Soil is mostly clay, mildly compacted, in or near beds with compost and chicken manure straw, depending on location. Garden is shaped into terraces to deal with the slope. Winters are cold (28F or colder nights for a few months) but not as cold as they used to be and with much less snow. We had an ice storm this year. Spring was unusually dry and summer was dry and hot, very different from the wet “temperate rainforest” that we expect here. But the parnsips made it through all of that, the stored energy from last year and their incredible cold tolerance made the climate weirding pretty manageable.
Trade requests: I can make 15 packets of 10g of seeds, and there’s still a second harvest coming, so I can trade with several people so please reply if you want seeds mailed to you, especially if you have any of your own saved parsnip seeds to trade. Here’s what I’m looking for, ordered by priority:
- Parnsips! any ol parnsips, especially for heavy clay soils, overwintered outside, and started with minimal care.
- Herbs: thyme and rosemary and dill etc. Commercial seeds I’ve bought germinate poorly and have no vigor.
- Long list of crops I like: tomatoes, corn, beans esp edible pod beans, edible pod peas, cilantro, storage squash, summer squash, cucumber-ish anything, muskmelons of any kind, sunflower, okra, amaranth, collard greens and relatives, spicy mustard greens, lettuce, carrots, turnips, millet, and diverse cereal grain multi-species mixes.
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