Just sharing a tip. I starts lots of things from seeds, and have been doing it for years and years. Last year I had my best pepper transplants EVER! This is what I did: 6-7 evenly spaced pepper seeds planted into a 4" pot. When plants were about 2-3" tall they were each transplanted into a 4-4.5" pot. Voila!! No losses, no issues. This sowing/transplanting scheme happened because I did not need to sow many seeds of each pepper variety, and I just did not have the time to transplant earlier and transplant multiple times into ever larger pots. This saved me time and energy, and the plants thrived:)

I don't know if this will be of any help. I plant my daylily seeds in a mixture of 2 parts of peat moss, 1 of vermiculite and 1 of perlite. I add water and soak it overnight before filling the cups. I buy the big bale of peat moss, so it cuts down on the cost. I punch holes in the bottoms and around the bottom edge of styrofoam cups, and fill them with the mix. (16 oz plastic drink cups will do, too.) I set them in aluminum foil roasting pans, and fill the pans with water. Once the seeds get their second set of leaves, I start adding one scoop of Schultz's Expert Plant Food to a gallon of water, and keep them in that solution until I am ready to transplant them. It is easy to slide out the plants, "soil" and all when ready to transplant. I just recently bought a mini green house, which is actually 4 shelves, with a zippered plastic cover that fits over it. It was only $30. It holds the pans of cups perfectly. You could also get some inexpensive plastic storage bins at Wal-Mart, drill holes in the bottom and set them in the aluminum foil pans. Just a few ideas for you. Don't try and move the pans if they are full of water and cups, as they will bend on you. I remove the cups, throw out the water every few days, put the cups back in and refill with fresh water.

George, I'm not surprised your second-year parsnips made such a nice seed harvest since, as you point out, they are biennial. Sometimes I leave carrots to overwinter and make seed the second year too. Come to think of it, parsnips and carrots aren't that different, are they? I don't know if parsnips would make a good fall crop for you although they do better for me in the fall than in the spring. Here's why: Although you and I are both growing gardens in Oklahoma, only a couple of hundred miles and 1 zone apart, we have really, really different weather conditions most years. For example, y'all always have a lot more moisture there than we have here, even when we are having a good rain year (about 3 or 4 years out of 10) in Love County. Y'all always have more humidity than we do, too, and most plants like that better. Our temperatures tend to heat up much earlier here in the springtime than yours do. It is not at all uncommon to have daytime highs in the 80s and 90s every now and then in Feb. and Mar. here in southern Oklahoma. Well, the cool-season crops don't like those hot days and they get stressed, and often that stress leads to bolting or just a lack of vigor. An occasional "hot" day like that in the midst of cooler ones can really confuse cool-season crops like parsnips, carrots, onions, potatoes, broccoli, brussels sprouts, lettuce, cabbage, etc. And, some years, our winter nights pretty much stay above 40 or 45 for very long stretches, and that can mess with the performance of cool-season crops. So, in my part of the state, almost all the cool season crops perform better if planted in mid- to late-summer for a late autumn to early winter harvest. (And, yes, getting them to germinate and getting them off to a good start is a pain!) In the spring, they all tend to bolt too early, but in the fall they usually do quite well. Our fall temperatures don't seem to vary as much as the spring ones....they slowly cool over the weeks, but in a more consistent manner, so the crops kind of roll along at an even keel. Some years (and this wasn't one of them) we are so hot in April and May that crops like broccoli and lettuce tend to bolt really early. So, for best results, the cool-season crops that you plant in spring, I have to plant in the fall. And, it goes without saying, that y'all cool off both earlier in the fall than we do, and your cooler temperaturs go lower. There are years I still have a thriving garden of warm-season crops in December! Sometimes we do have one early hard freeze, often in October but, if I cover up plants and they survive that, they may have another 4 to 10 weeks of good weather. So, for me, parnsips are a great fall crop. For you, I just don't know. I guess it would depend on how early your nights get "cold" and how cold they get. Rutabagas and turnips are similar. Many years, I can grow them all fall and virtually all winter and it doesn't even get cold enough to slow down their growth. Of course, some years it does get too cold too early and stunts them. If I have them well-mulched, though, they tend to do great all winter. Spinach and other greens often grow all winter here, although sometimes they need a frost blamket to get them through a really cold night or two. And, I am in the really, really warm southernmost part of Love County, so even though I am zone 7B, many winters we absolutely have zone 8a or even zone 8b weather conditions. Of course, that's not always good. A lot of people here get lulled into a false sense of security and plant zone 8 plants like Texas Mountain Laurel, dwarf ornamental pomegranate, various jasmines or gardenias and Mexican bush sage. And, while those plants may survive for 2, 3, or 4 years here, the occasional winter when we actually have true zone 7 winter low temperatures gets them every time. So, for me, fall parsnips--yes. For Dorothy? Probably. For you? Maybe? Maybe Not? For both you and Dorothy, I think a lot of the decision would involve if your garden is in a slightly warmer or slightly cooler microclimate too. If only we all could know in advance if the first fall freeze would be early or late, and if cold nights will come early and linger, or come late and be milder. I wish we had a crystal ball. And, if you had a great spring crop of parnsips, the question too then becomes, how many do you need? (smile) Dawn (from COOL and RAINY Marietta, where we are getting reacquainted with the wet, squishy sound the ground makes when moisture falls)

I found the 1927 study: http://www.sustainablefarmer.com/pdflibrary/library-rootdevelopment.pdf The section on tomatoes starts on page 180. The first several pages clearly shows that disturbing the tap root causes a more fibrous root system, however, transplanting also checks plant development. What really matters is the health and yield of the plants when in the field. In this regard the report states on page 192: "Usually the seedlings are transplanted when they are about 2 inches high and more space given each. In this process the roots are more or less severely pruned and the new root system is much more fibrous. Frequently a second transplanting is made in which each plant is given still more room or transplanted in a suitable receptacle such as a flowerpot, paper band, tin can, etc. Since the root system is disturbed and the development of the plant more or less checked at each transplanting, it might be concluded that plants grown from seed sown directly in pots or other containers would grow more vigorously and give a higher yield than those once or twice transplanted. In fact this has been shown by numerous investigations to be the case. That transplanting in itself does not promote an early crop nor an increased yield has been also clearly demonstrated. In an experiment in Wisconsin three crops of tomatoes were grown . . . In each case seeds were planted singly in 6-inch pots in the greenhouse; when the plants were about 2 inches in height, two-thirds of the whole number were dug up and reset in the same pots; later, one-half of these were again transplanted in a similar manner. As soon as weather permitted, 10 plants of each lot were knocked from the pots and set 4 by 8 feet apart in open ground, every precaution being taken to avoid injury to the roots. Those not transplanted yielded more than those once transplanted, while those twice transplanted yielded least. The total for 10 plants with each treatment during a 3-year period was, 1,175, 1,131, and 1,001 pounds, respectively. TomNJ