"Chris" ] wrote in message
]...
I want to get a fine tilth for sowing parsnip seeds - and the ground is
hard as iron ... not baked clods ... but rather a hard smooth surface.
What can I do?

Get yourself a strong iron bar - one of those used to hang ropes round road
works is ideal - and use a sledge hammer to knock it iont the ground but
waggle it around now and then so as to get a tapered hole about 2 feet deep.
Make a line of such holes about 12 inches or so apart.

Fill the holes with a broken up earth - not John Innes or multipurpose
compost they're too "rich".

Plant about five seeds per hole cover lightly and keep watered now and then.

Parsnip seed take a long time to germinate so be patient. Pick out the weak
seedlings leaving one parsnip one per hole.

The first time I did this I thought the seeds had not germinated so made
some more holes and planted more seeds. - they all came up and in the winter
of 1963 I had use a pickaxe to get them up - they were huge! That was in
Bromley Kent, the garden of England, but who wants to live in the garden?
It's too cold!

Geoff