It is the one herb I use just about every day whether on my
morning breakfast eggs, added to a salad, soup or stew or scattered over my
favourite pasta or curry, I always seem to be able to find ways to use it.
Here is how I grow parsley all year so that I always have it
available.
How to grow
Parsley.
It
is a biennial growing one year and sending up a flower stalk in the following year,
so I like to plant new plants every year.
Parsley is
a warm season plant and grow best between 20–30°C. Whilst it will survive at lower
temperatures is growth is very slow.
It likes
full sun but in hot weather (over 35 oC) a bit of protection is needed.
Like
most herbs they like well drained fertile soil with a soil pH of around 6.5.
Ideal
for container production. Use a pot of at least a 200mm and good quality
potting mix. Be extra diligent about watering and fertilising, especially
during hot and windy conditions, to maintain plenty of healthy growth.
Whilst
parsley will grow quite easily from seed, they take a long time to germinate (it
can be up to 6 weeks) and I am not very patient, so I usually just buy
seedlings to plant out.
I do three plantings a year. At the beginning
of spring, the beginning of summer and mid-autumn. The spring planting go into
the vegetable garden in full sun, the summer planting into an area with
afternoon shade and the mid- autumn planting are planted into pots so I can put
them in a nice warm protected area during winter. This ensures year-round
production.
Even
though I let some plants go to seed they do not seem to self-seed around the
garden like many people in warmer climates report happening.
They require the usual maintenance of plenty of water and fertilising
with a high nitrogen liquid fertiliser once a week to get lots of growth so you
can be harvesting bunches of parsley all year.
When harvesting always pull the whole leaf away from the base of
the plant rather than just cutting or picking the leafy top as leaving a leaf
stub can cause the base of the plant to rot in warmer weather.
As I can usually get year-round production I don’t always dry
excess leaves but it is worth doing to have some in the cupboard as it is far
superior in flavour to anything you can buy.
So why not pop some parsley plants into your garden this week and
enjoy not only the taste but the nutritional benefits of this wonderful herb.
