Parsley Growing Calendar: Two Sowings and a Two-Year Cycle

The two-year cycle in one view

Parsley is biennial, so a single plant spans two calendar years: leaves in the first, flowers in the second. The practical answer is to keep two overlapping batches going at all times, one sown in spring and one in late summer, so that a plant coming to the end of its life never leaves you short.

A batch is worth keeping for one full year of picking and then clearing. Anything you get from it in its second spring before the flower stem rises is a bonus, not the plan.

Spring: get the soil warm enough first

Everything in spring hangs on soil temperature. Parsley germinates poorly below 50F (10C) and takes four weeks or more even at that, so the temptation to sow early costs more than it gains. Wait, or start under cover in deep cells and plant out when nights settle above 45F (7C).

1. Late winter Order seed and decide the position, keeping three years between parsley and any bed that grew carrots, parsnips or celery.
2. Early spring, under cover Sow into cells at least 3 inches (8 cm) deep, two or three seeds each. Keep at around 70F (21C) and expect two to three weeks before anything shows.
3. Mid spring, outdoors Direct sow once the soil is reliably above 50F (10C). Cover the row to hold moisture and mark it, because nothing will appear for weeks.
4. Late spring, thinning Thin in two passes to a final 6 to 8 inches (15 to 20 cm). Pinch seedlings off rather than pulling, and clear the thinnings away from the bed.
5. Watch the overwintered plants The old batch grows hard now and then starts to lengthen at the center. When it does, cut everything usable and pull the plant.

A cold snap over young plants that are already pencil-thick at the base can vernalize them and cause a first-year bolt in summer. Row cover is a cheap insurance for a forecast cold week.

Summer: pick steadily and never let it dry out

The spring batch comes into full production through summer and this is when it earns its space. The two things that go wrong are picking too hard from too few plants, and letting the bed or the pots dry out between waterings, which toughens the leaves and pushes the plants toward flowering.

Take no more than a third of the stalks from any plant at a time, working around the outside of the rosette, and give it two to three weeks before returning. A liquid feed leaning toward nitrogen every three or four weeks keeps the leaf coming; parsley is grown for foliage and responds directly to it.

Midsummer is also when caterpillars and leaf spot show up. Neither needs panic. Keep the plants spaced, water the soil rather than the leaves, and check the newest growth once a week.

Late summer and autumn: sow the winter batch

The late-summer sowing is the one that separates gardeners who have parsley in winter from those who do not. Time it so the plants reach four to six true leaves by the first frost: big enough to be tough, small enough that they will not be fully vernalized into an early spring bolt.

Autumn is the best picking of the year from the spring batch. Growth is still fast, the leaves are softer than summer growth, and the plants will not need to carry that leaf through winter anyway. Cut generously and freeze the surplus in oil, because the same plants will give you almost nothing in the depths of winter.

Clear the second-year plants once their seed has dried and been collected. Leaving them standing feeds slugs and keeps carrot fly in the neighborhood over winter.

Winter: shelter matters more than heat

Parsley is hardy well below freezing and survives outdoors in most temperate gardens without help. What it does not tolerate well is a winter of cold, standing wet around the crown, which is what actually kills over-wintering plants. Raise beds, improve drainage and keep containers off the ground and out of the rain shadow of a downpipe.

A cloche or a layer of row cover will not make parsley grow much faster in winter, but it keeps the leaves clean and undamaged, which is the difference between picking and just looking. Pick sparingly and rotate between plants, allowing six weeks of recovery rather than the two or three you would in summer.

Every plant that spends the winter cold is being vernalized, so plan on all of them bolting in spring. Have the spring sowing under way before you need it.

Catching up when a stage slips

Because parsley takes so long from sowing to first picking, a missed sowing is felt months later. Most slips can still be corrected within the same year if you act as soon as you notice.

General calendars talk in seasons because they have to. Yours can talk in dates. Record the sowing date and emergence date of every batch, the date of the first proper cut, and the date each plant bolts, and within two seasons you will have a schedule fitted to your own garden rather than an average one.

Note the bed each batch occupied as well. Parsley shares its worst problems with the rest of the carrot family, and a three-year rotation only works if you can prove where things were.

Every catch-up here depends on the seed getting a full three or four weeks to germinate. Count backwards from when you want to pick, not forwards from today.