Generations of gardening wisdom is not until the soil has warmed up and this can be tested by sitting your naked bottom on the soil. If you can do that without shrieking, the soil is warm enough for seeds to germinate. How to stop the plot neighbours shrieking at the sight has never been explained!
Or my preferred approach is to wait til mid-March to end of March before doing any outdoor sowing and that’s with plastic sheeting down for about a month beforehand to help nature’s warming process.
I’ve learnt to not bother getting the parsnip seeds out of their packet until May or even June for reliable germination. Imagine my surprise when I noticed these parsnip seedlings popping up at plot 34 last November.
These are self sown from a parsnip I left to seed but then waited too long before harvesting the seeds!
It seems like nature has other ideas for the best way to sow seeds. It would not have occurred to me to sow parsnips in September/October to overwinter and yet, here’s the proof. I suppose the real test is flavour and texture and whether I want to be pulling and eating parsnips in August. Hmmm, maybe there is logic in that gardener’s wisdom after all!
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Allotment Life 
You just never know do you?
Not sure whether you’ll leave these seedlings in situ (given that you might need the space for something else already planned) …
but I suggest you might
a) transplant a few for an experiment and
b) offer some to fellow plot holders (I only know that if I was on your site I’d snatch your hand off!).
Best wishes for the growing season.
Let the madness commence!
I’d not considered transplanting a few – another good idea Batman 😉
I’ve never met anyone who has done that! I generally wait until at least late March to start sowing anything direct, except broad beans. xx
I take it you mean sitting naked on the soil (that has to be tall tale!) rather than flinging parsnip seeds about in October – or maybe both;)
I do indeed. I’ve no doubt that someone has sown parsnip seeds in October. xx
Sitting on the soil to decide if it’s warm enough to sow lacks appeal. The fact that my broad beans sown in Feb is no doubt because I failed to do this little test 😉.
Maybe your parsnips will be ready sooner than August if they self-sowed last autumn.