Monday 25 April 2011

Do you know your seedlings?

Just recently, Janet Bruten from Plantalicious wrote about the difficulties of recognising vegetable seedlings in amongst a multiplicity of weeds on her allotment. This got me thinking about how similar some plants look when they are young. See if you can identify the ones in the following photos:

A

B
 
C

D

E
F


They all look quite similar, don't they? This is what they are:-

A - Parsley
B - Celeriac
C - Parsnip
D - Hamburg Parsley
E - Carrot
F - Coriander (Cilantro)

The carrots, by the way, are not officially being cultivated. They come from seeds that have dropped out of the bird-feeder. And the Coriander is self-sown from a Baby Leaf Salad mixture I grew last year. It's not one I would sow deliberately, because I am very allergic to the leafy bits of this herb, though surprisingly I am OK with the seed used as a spice.

12 comments:

  1. Just like my piano playing: All the right notes - just not in the right order!

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  2. a,b,c and e right as I'm growing them on my plot. Not easy to tell them apart at a young age though.

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  3. I got the carrots! I have to work on my identification skills ;)

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  4. I only got two right since I couldn't call them all parsley except the carrots.

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  5. Ooo I said, "parsley, parsley, parsley and parsley. Oh, and that and that are parsley and parsley"!

    What an eye for detail!

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  6. when I saw the intro, I knew I would be able to identify them all! But I am with Ali....parsley, parsley etc. LOL.

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  7. My answers were "parsley, parsley, parsley.. or maybe strawberry?" DUh!!..

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  8. B and D was incorrect, never planted them before. I thought B was celery. I have this small area which is full of self-sowed celery, parsley and coriander. Self-sowed Lakspur seedling look similar with this bunch of group too. I thought it was parsley seedling, but it was actually lakspur.LOL.

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  9. Well, my allotment mentor has done well because I recognised the parsnip seedling - we will skip over the fact that I mistook the celeriac for coriander, and thought you had tried to get us by putting coriander in twice. I'm growing both, so you't think I would know. Please can you do one on weed seedling recognition?!

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