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Help me identify shoots please
Alan Howard
Posts: 10
in Fruit & veg
Hi,
I'm brand new to gardening and could really use some help ...
I've started a veg patch for my daughter and am not sure if these are weeds or shoots the first one below is where I planted Turnips
The next is where I planted Parsnips
Also I planted Onions and Little gen lettuce and need advice as to when and how to thin them ...below are the pics of the "clumps" .. they seem very puny to pull out and replant now ? should I wait til they're bigger?? how big??
Onions
Little gem lettuce (each leaf seems to be an individual plant!)
Many thanks in advance !!
Alan
0
Posts
Hello, these are young parsnip plants. Thin them out to about 6" apart. Just carefully, with your fingers, pull out the excess.
Do the same with the little gem lettuces, you will find that if you pinch out a few together and look at them each one will have it's own roots a a few leaves.
Sorry, I've never grown turnips, don't like them much, and onions I grow from sets (baby onions that you plant). But I think the onions look a bit small to handle. I'd leave them a little longer.
Thats great thanks Lizzie ... I don't think my parsnips are parsnips then!
seem to have loads of lettuce and not much else!
thanks again ...
Alan
Parsnips often take a long time to germinate and they aren't very reliable.
Why don't you buy a good book, with photos, about vegetable growing?
I'll do that .. it's a bit spur of the moment and started with my mum and daughter, gardening centre, pack of seeds - It looks dead easy if you just read the packet !
Think my daugher's got the bug tho ... just hope I don't kill them all ...
I think that the plant in your first image ( turnips) is creeping buttercup which can be an invasive weed and really needs digging up. It has brittle roots and all of it needs to be removed otherwise the root pieces will grow back.
the first seed leaves of turnips will be heartshaped followed by more normal leaves.
Your lettuces look an ideal size to be transplanted, water well, lift as a clump and then gently seperate them and replant about 6 inches apart. Just be careful not to damage the stems so only hold them by the leaves.
Good luck.
Smashing ... I love this forum ...
thanks !
Ok ... I've asked the audience ... still got phone a friend ....
But are you sure that the things growing where you said you planted turnips aren't the parsnips......?
Another point is that perhaps you should try really hard to separate the seeds as you sow them into the row. You seem to be getting clumps, maybe because the seeds are all fallng in together. Although the packet says to thin them after they come up, some seedlings, particuarly root crops, don't like to be transplanted, so the packet is really telling you to throw them away. I'm, greedy, so I don't thin as much as I should, but with parsnips, carrots and beetroot, they seem to push each other out of the way and you can (carefully) pick the larger and leave the smaller for another time. But you do need to try to leave a space between seeds if you can.