Gadenin日本語Get the appLate summer to early autumn: the sowing that matters
The best chervil of the year comes from a sowing made as the heat starts to leave the soil. Germination is good in cooling ground, the seedlings grow away without any bolting pressure, and the plants go into winter as tough low rosettes ready to crop from the first mild spell onwards. Gardeners who only ever sow in spring never see chervil at its best.
Sow shallow, keep the surface damp until the seedlings appear two to three weeks later, and thin in two passes to six to nine inches (15 to 23 cm) apart. Shade matters less at this end of the year, so an open bed is fine as long as it drains.
- Sow as the soil drops below 70F (21C) That is the point at which germination becomes reliable again after summer. Sowing while the ground is still hot gives a patchy row that bolts almost immediately.
- Make two sowings three weeks apart The first gives you autumn cutting, the second overwinters as smaller plants and takes over in late winter. Between them they cover the whole cool season.
- Choose ground that drains Winter wet kills far more chervil than winter cold does. A slightly raised bed, or a container standing off the ground, is worth more than any amount of row cover.
Winter: cutting through the cold
Chervil is hardy and takes hard frost without protection, dying back in the worst weather and pushing out again as soon as it thaws. Cold improves the flavor: leaf cut after a frost is sweeter and more strongly anise scented than the same plant in mild autumn weather. This is the season when chervil earns its place, because very little else in the garden is producing fresh soft leaf.
Cover is about keeping the leaf clean and cropping rather than about survival. A cloche, low tunnel or cold frame keeps rain off the foliage, stops mud splashing into the divided leaves and lets you cut on days when an open row would be flattened.
| Condition | What the plant does | What you do |
|---|---|---|
| Light frost | Foliage stands, flavor improves | Keep cutting |
| Hard frost | Top growth collapses, crown survives | Leave it. Cut once it has thawed |
| Long wet spell | Crown may rot at the base | Improve drainage, pull the mulch back off the crowns |
| Mild spell | New leaf pushes from the center | Cut lightly, no more than a third |
| Under a cloche | Grows slowly all winter | Ventilate on mild days, cut regularly |
Cut sparingly in the coldest weeks. A plant stripped bare in deep winter regrows very slowly and may not recover before the spring flush, whereas one taken lightly keeps producing.
Spring: the flush, then the bolt
Overwintered plants respond to the first real warmth with a burst of growth, and this is the heaviest cutting of the year. It does not last. Rising temperatures and lengthening days push the same plants into flower within a few weeks, so the flush and the bolt arrive close together and you need to be ready to take a lot of leaf at once.
Sow again in early spring as soon as the ground is workable. Those plants crop from mid spring and give four to six weeks of cutting before they in turn run up. Between the overwintered row and the spring row you can hold a supply until the weather turns properly warm.
- Cut the overwintered plants hard as the flush starts They are going to flower shortly whatever you do, so take the leaf while it is good. Freeze what you cannot use in butter or oil.
- Mark two or three plants for seed and clear the rest Leaving the whole row to flower shades out the next sowing and gives you far more seed than you can store while it is still fresh.
- Move the spring sowing into shade The bed that suited the autumn sowing is often too bright by late spring. Sow the spring row where something taller will shade it as the season warms.
Summer: accept the gap
There is no good way to grow chervil through a hot summer. Germination is unreliable above 75F (24C), and anything that does come up flowers in two or three weeks. Fighting this wastes seed that is short lived to begin with, and the seed is better kept for the autumn sowing when it will actually perform.
If you want some anyway, deep shade and a deep pot that you can move are the only combination worth trying. Expect a small crop for a short window. The more useful summer job is watching the seed plants, collecting seed as it ripens and getting it dry and stored before the autumn sowing comes round.
| Season | Main job | What to watch for |
|---|---|---|
| Early spring | Sow outdoors, cut overwintered plants | Flower stems on last year's plants |
| Late spring | Cut the spring row, mark seed plants | Narrow leaves signaling the bolt |
| Early summer | Collect and dry seed | Ripe seed shedding from the umbels |
| Late summer | Sow the main crop as the soil cools | Slugs on the new seedlings |
| Autumn | Thin, mulch, start cutting | Aphids in the growing points |
| Winter | Cut lightly, ventilate covers | Crown rot in standing water |
The notes that make next year easier
Chervil is more sensitive to timing than almost anything else in a kitchen garden, and general advice about seasons only gets you close. Your own dates, written down over two seasons, will tell you exactly when to sow in your own garden and how long a plant will last from each sowing. It takes a minute per entry and it replaces all the guesswork.
- Sowing date and emergence date for every row The gap between the two tells you whether the soil was warm enough and whether your seed is still alive. A row that takes more than four weeks to show is almost always old seed.
- The date each row ran to flower, and where it was Record the position and how much shade it got alongside the date. The comparison between a shaded row and a sunnier one is the single most useful thing you can learn about chervil.
- The year the seed was collected Keep it on the envelope and in your notes. Chervil seed is only reliably good for one year, so knowing its age saves you a wasted row.
- The week volunteers appear Self sown seedlings germinate when conditions are genuinely right. Their arrival date is the best possible guide to when your deliberate sowings should go in.