If you don’t like the parsley sold in stores, you can easily grow this unpretentious plant at home. It is better to buy varieties that are rich in greens and early ripening: Harvest, Ordinary Leaf, Curly Sue, Prima, Bordovinskaya, Curly, Sugar. There are two options for growing parsley on a windowsill: forcing root crops or sowing seeds. Choose the one that seems most convenient to you and feel free to plant parsley at home.
It’s good when parsley grows on the windowsill at any time of the year, because with fresh herbs, dishes become more aromatic, tastier and more appetizing. And they have a beneficial effect on the body, promoting healing from various diseases.
The larger the root crop, the more buds will form on it and the leaves will grow.
Growing parsley at home by forcing root vegetables is not at all difficult - this activity will not cause you any unnecessary trouble. Before the soil freezes, dig up several parsley root crops along with their petioles from the garden bed or purchase them in the vegetable department of the store, making sure to check that there is no damage to the root crops. Root crops can be of any size, but the most optimal diameter is considered to be 2-4 cm. The larger the root crop, the more buds will form on it and the leaves will grow; moreover, such parsley will take longer to grow at home.
Video about growing greens on a windowsill
Before planting parsley at home, disinfect the pots or boxes prepared for it with a weak solution of potassium permanganate. The soil for parsley can be mixed independently from 70% garden soil, 10% turf soil and 20% humus, with the addition of phosphate fertilizers and lime. You can also buy ready-made soil mixture.
Fill the box with soil, moisten it and plant parsley roots in rows every two centimeters, with row spacing of four centimeters. Try not to cover the heads of root crops with soil. After planting, lightly tamp down the soil and water well.
When the petioles begin to grow, move the box to the windowsill
Growing parsley at home is not particularly difficult:
During the winter, you can make several forcings of parsley, first planting smaller root crops, and a month later - larger ones. In early spring, move several plants to the balcony.
During the winter you can make several forcings of parsley
Parsley planted from seeds has its pros and cons: it requires more care, the first greens appear only a month and a half after sowing, but parsley will produce fresh green mass for longer than a year.
Parsley is grown by seeds as follows:
Video about growing parsley
Whatever method of growing parsley you choose, you will be able to achieve lush greenery by providing the plant with abundant watering in summer and moderate watering in winter, as well as sufficient daylight (in winter it is necessary to add phytolamps for 3-4 hours). Otherwise, provided the soil is properly selected and the temperature is appropriate, parsley will turn green at any time of the year.
If you want to always have vitamin-rich parsley on the table, growing it at home will be the best option, because fresh herbs grow very quickly on a house plant - just have time to cut it. In addition, you will know for sure that the parsley you grow does not contain any chemicals and is extremely beneficial for the body.
Bushes of fragrant greenery are grown both in the garden and on the balcony. The main thing in this matter is to know the rules for planting parsley and caring for it from seeds to harvesting.
Sowing in open ground and in apartment conditions is practically no different. The first thing to do is soak the seeds. It is best to use spring, untreated water. So, on a plate, place a piece of gauze, folded in half. Sprinkle the seeds and cover with the free end of the gauze. Pour in water so that the seed bed is completely covered. After a day and a half, the seeds are ready. Planting is also done without preliminary soaking, then seedlings appear more slowly. Prepare the ground. When growing on a balcony, place drainage at the bottom of the pot, it can be wood ash, river pebbles, then add a layer of earth, about 3 cm, a layer of fertilizer and again earth. When sowing in the garden, the soil is prepared as follows: make shallow furrows and pour boiling water over them. The soil is ready, it's time to sow. Deepen the swollen seeds half a centimeter into the ground, cover with soil no more than 1 cm. Moisten the crops. At above-zero temperatures, seedlings will appear in 5-6 days.
Parsley leaves are known to emit a scent that repels insect pests, so plant several rows of the greens next to carrots, lettuce and other vegetable crops.
Parsley helps every housewife make soup with meatballs fragrant and highlight the taste of spring vegetables in a salad. It is loved by gourmets for its slightly spicy taste and divinely fresh aroma, and by gardeners for its unpretentiousness to growing conditions. The same cannot be said about seeds! Owners of their own plots know how difficult it is to wait for the first shoots, regardless of what variety of parsley is chosen. Therefore, the question of how to quickly germinate parsley worries everyone before sowing the crop in the country. The great desire to get a rich harvest in the first year forces us to look for affordable ways and methods. About the most effective of them - here!
Every gardener who has taken up sowing parsley has noticed that the seeds germinate very difficult. Shoots appear unevenly and at different times (from 18 to 22 days), during the period of maturation they often “fall out” from the black leg, and are demanding on watering. But this is the best case scenario, and it often happens that parsley seeds do not germinate at all and have to be replanted several times!
What is the reason for such difficulty in seed germination? With 2 factors. This:
Parsley seeds are difficult to germinate due to the large amount of essential oils they contain.
And if the shell itself collapses under the influence of moisture and soil pressure during sowing, then you will have to fight with essential oils! They are the main difficulty that gardeners face. The solution is to wash off the essential oils from the shell and provide maximum humidity in order to destroy it. This is the only way that parsley seeds will produce friendly and healthy shoots in a short period of time.
Sprouting parsley in advance, before sowing, is an effective method to later obtain friendly shoots, well-developing young bushes that will delight you with the harvest all season long. And not only in the first year! However, each of the methods takes time, so if you plan to sow parsley in early April, on the 1st-6th, for example, you need to start germinating the seeds 4-7 days before the sowing day.
One of the easiest ways is to soak the seeds in water (temperature 20-35°C) for several days. The water should be changed every 7-8 hours, that is, once a day. Simple steps will help you do everything right. So, you need:
Soaking seeds in water is an easy way to speed up parsley germination.
In this case, the seeds will germinate in 3-5 days. After fragile sprouts appear, the gauze should be removed from the water and placed in the refrigerator on the lowest shelf. Hardening time - up to 7 days. Such a shake will allow the seeds to simply transfer the sowing process to open ground and please the owner with strong seedlings.
It is no secret to many experienced gardeners that ordinary vodka helps in germinating parsley.
Attention! You shouldn’t take alcohol or moonshine; they usually have a high degree of alcohol, which can be dangerous for the seeds. But store-bought vodka with a strength of 40% is the best option.
In order to germinate parsley faster in this way, you need to:
This method is optimally fast, which will allow you to quickly obtain seedlings. It is an excellent solution if there is no time for germination, and the sowing time is close.
Treatment with vodka will allow parsley seeds to germinate faster
This method of sand germination is simple and accessible to everyone. An important point is the freshness of the seeds. Parsley seeds retain good germination for 2-3 years; the best option is self-collected seeds from last year.
To quickly germinate parsley seeds, just mix them with a small amount of clean sand and rub them with your hands. A simple procedure will free the shell from essential oils and make it thin, which will contribute to rapid and friendly germination.
Having studied the methods of germinating parsley seeds, it turns out that everything is not so complicated. It is enough to choose a method and devote time to this process - and parsley will delight you with an excellent harvest of greens or root tubers for 2 years in a row!
Parsley is a biennial plant that no garden can do without. Growing parsley often causes some difficulties for gardeners - the seeds germinate poorly or not at all. Root and leaf varieties are grown in our gardens. The beneficial properties of parsley, its pleasant aroma that improves the taste of any dish, have made it an integral attribute of any garden. How to prepare parsley seeds for sowing, how to speed up or increase their germination? Parsley belongs to the Umbelliferae family along with dill, caraway, angelica, lovage, cilantro, carrots, parsnips, celery, and coriander. All of them have hollow stems and umbrella-shaped inflorescences. Botanical name - Petroselinum crispum.
It is difficult to say which parsley is more popular among gardeners. Leaf parsley can be ordinary, with smooth, shiny leaves, or curly, with matte corrugated leaves. They differ from each other in leaf shape. Common parsley usually has a stronger flavor than curly leaf parsley. But curly parsley is very beautiful, elegant - it will decorate any dish.
Parsley is used in soups, sauces, salads; its use reduces the need for salt. It is a low saturated fat, very low cholesterol food. It is also a good source of protein, vitamin E (alpha tocopherol), thiamine, riboflavin, niacin, vitamin B6, pantothenic acid, and a very good source of dietary fiber. Parsley contains a considerable amount of vitamin C. It is also rich in vitamin A - its effect on vision and on reducing the risk of atherosclerosis and diabetes is well known. Carotene, calcium, mineral salts of iron, phosphorus, minerals - this is just the main list of useful components of this aromatic plant. And the presence of aroma, its strength and pleasant taste depend on the percentage of essential oils. Root vegetables and parsley leaves are used for food.
Parsley seeds take a long time to germinate – 15-20 days. This is due to the fact that the seeds are covered with essential oils, which prevent germination; they prevent the seed shell from getting wet and do not allow moisture inside. This feature must be taken into account when preparing parsley seeds for sowing. After sowing, many gardeners cover the beds with film or spunbond to keep the soil moist. Do not remove the shelter until the sprouts appear from the ground. If you are sure that you can keep the beds moist throughout the 15-20 days required for germination, then soaking the parsley seeds before sowing is not necessary.
But there are ways to germinate seeds that increase parsley germination, accelerating the emergence of seedlings.
You can speed up germination by soaking the seeds in water overnight before planting. Water, by the way, practically does not dissolve the oil on the surface of the seeds. Therefore, before soaking, you should pour hot water (not boiling water) over the parsley seeds to wash away the essential oils from their surface.
Another way. Very simple. Need to soak the seeds in vodka, since essential oils dissolve in alcohol-containing solutions. I pour a little 40-degree water into the bottom of the saucer. Then I sprinkle the seeds on a small piece of wide gauze bandage. I dip parsley seeds on gauze in vodka and leave for 15-20 minutes. You can't do it any longer - you might burn the seeds. Then I lift the bandage with the seeds and rinse it under running water. It is necessary to rinse. Then I dry the seeds. That's it - the parsley seeds are ready for sowing. This method of seed treatment allows them to germinate twice as fast. The shoots are friendly and strong.
There is another way fast germination. Many of us grow herbs for the table on a window or balcony. It is very comfortable. Parsley seeds germinate very slowly, but there is one way to “make” them germinate very quickly. Prepare a container with soil, moisten it, sprinkle the soil with quicklime three times every 10-15 minutes. Sow parsley seeds pre-soaked in milk. The seeds will sprout in three hours. The room should be warm, not lower than 20°C.
Before sowing parsley seeds, you should dig up or loosen the soil well. It will not be superfluous to fill it with organic fertilizers before cultivating the soil.
The timing of sowing depends on the condition of the soil. You don't have to wait for warm weather. As soon as the snow has melted, you can sow the seeds. The optimal temperature for seed germination is +1 - +5C. In Kuban you can sow during the “February windows”. In central Russia - in April, after the snow melts. That is, parsley is a cold-resistant plant. The seedlings easily tolerate light frosts and overwinter well under a good layer of snow. Spring is a great time to sow parsley seeds, but you can sow it any time of the year - spring, summer and fall. The most important thing is to keep the soil moist until germination. Seeds can be sown in late autumn, before winter. In this case, the sowing time must be chosen so that the seeds do not have time to germinate before the onset of frost - the young seedlings will not tolerate the cold and will die.
The best predecessors of parsley are onions, cucumbers, and tomatoes. Sow the seeds shallowly, to a depth of no more than 1-1.5 cm. It is better to sprinkle the seeds on top with humus. During the entire growth period, it is necessary to loosen the soil at least 3-4 times and feed 1-2 times. If the seedlings are too dense, the crops need to be thinned out. There should be at least 3-5 cm between plants. Fertilizing should begin only after 2-3 true leaves appear. Feed with a complete mineral fertilizer with a predominance of nitrogen. The soil should not be allowed to dry out. Parsley does not like weeds; they greatly inhibit its growth.
Over the entire season, 3-4 loosening, 1-2 fertilizing and watering are carried out. In case of dense shoots, the plants are thinned out, leaving 3-5 cm between them. Feeding begins when the plants have 2-3 true leaves, and then feeding is done after cutting off the leaves. To obtain a large yield of green mass, parsley is fed with complete mineral fertilizer with a predominance of nitrogen.
Leaves are cut as low as possible. Do not cut too many leaves from one plant at a time - no more than a third, otherwise the bush will not be able to recover quickly or will die altogether. It is worth periodically removing the stem on which the inflorescence forms (unless you want to collect the seeds) because new leaves will not grow on the old stem. New leaves usually grow from the outside of the rosette. By the way, in curly varieties, new leaves grow from the center of the rosette.
Tomatoes and asparagus in your garden will grow better if parsley grows nearby. Plant it near roses - their aroma will intensify.
The best storage method is freezing. It retains taste and color well when frozen. If you have to collect it for storage after rain, you should rinse the branches well and dry them by wrapping them in a kitchen towel. Separate the leaves from the stems. Don't throw away the stems; you can freeze them too. They are great for enhancing the taste of soups. Place the parsley stalks into the soup shortly before the end of cooking, tied into bunches. Then, after 5-7 minutes, they can be removed from the soup.
Parsley is a wonderful green, biennial herb that can be added to almost any dish. By sowing parsley in the summer, you can try this greenery not only in the year of planting, but also the next season. In addition, parsley is an unpretentious plant and there are no complicated rules on how to sow it or how to care for it.
Parsley has one peculiarity - its seeds take a long time to germinate.
I even found a post on the Internet that says: “How to grow parsley in 3 hours” - to do this, you need to soak it in milk, and sprinkle the soil with dolomite three times every 10-15 minutes before planting. In my opinion - complete nonsense! Moreover, I did not see a single photograph confirming this experiment.
Little tips.
Good luck with your planting, harvest and ideas!
Parsley is the herb that we always grow in our gardens and vegetable gardens. There are no special secrets on how to plant parsley; planting parsley and dill is simple. It grows in almost any soil; parsley can grow in both sun and partial shade. Parsley grows best in light, fertile soil in a sunny location.
Parsley is a two-year herb, so in May you can eat last year's parsley shoots, and by June wait for new shoots. The advantage of parsley is that it has a long period when planting parsley - it can be planted throughout the summer and even before winter, but don’t get too carried away, it may not overwinter well. Leaf parsley can be sown throughout the summer.
Parsley grows well in fertilized and loose soils; if you are growing root parsley, then loamy or sandy loam soil is suitable for it. This plant is light-loving and loves long daylight hours, so choose a sunny planting site. Suitable for growing parsley in the garden:
The plant is moisture-loving, but you should not over-water the plantings, it does not tolerate it. Can be damaged by powdery mildew, rust, black dry rot. It must be protected from slugs and aphids.
Days of the waxing moon for planting parsley in 2015:
A significant disadvantage of parsley is that it takes a long time to sprout, so if you plant parsley on greens in April, it will be edible in June. Parsley seeds germinate more slowly, so you can soak the seeds before planting.
To speed up the cultivation of parsley in open ground, cover the crops with covering material. You can even do this. I decided to cover it with polyethylene, and then, after the first green shoots appeared, with lutrasil or other woven material. Under polyethylene, parsley will sprout quickly, and then by replacing polyethylene with woven material, you will not need to worry about the seedlings burning.
Mini-greenhouses in the form of containers with drawers and a lid are well suited for growing parsley from seedlings.
Parsley seedlings take a long time to emerge, about two weeks.
How to speed up the germination of parsley seeds (how to soak parsley seeds if they do not germinate):
It is best and most common to plant parsley in rows. You don’t even have to make a separate bed, but plant it between other vegetables that ripen slowly. It is preferable to grow parsley in beds with row spacing of 20–25 cm.
There is parsley: root and leaf.
How to plant root parsley.
Growing root parsley has its own subtleties, since the root system forms the root crop in the form of a cone, it must be sown immediately in a permanent place, in early spring (mid-April). Shoots take a long time to appear, so be sure to soak the seeds. It needs potassium for good growth, so before planting, add ash to the soil at the rate of 1 cup of ash per 1 meter of planting. In dry weather, water the prepared breast generously before adding the ash. In wet weather, ash can simply be scattered between rows on moist soil.
Leaf parsley has beautiful leaves that can be used to decorate flower beds and garden design. The leaves are smooth, curly, and corrugated. The root of leaf parsley is thin and highly branched.
Parsley is an unpretentious herb, but it still grows better:
Thanks to its beautiful curly leaves and long-term preservation of its bright green color, until frost, parsley can be used as an ornamental plant. It can be used to decorate flower beds or plant at the edges in raised beds. Green parsley leaves also look beautiful in garden flowerpots. In addition, parsley can be trimmed, and then it grows back and you can reap several harvests of herbs.
Parsley is the most delicious and healthy herb, which is so widely used as a seasoning for preparing various dishes. It is also very well used in medicine, serves as the best healer in folk medicine and more. Not only the leaves are used, but also the root of parsley. Almost every gardener grows it on his plot. You can choose seeds at a gardening store, where you can choose the variety that you like best among a large selection. On the back of each package it is written when it will sprout and what its taste characteristics are.
This cultivated plant can be sown at the end of summer, so that next year it will produce a good harvest of root crops and also greens, or in the spring so that you can eat these healthy greens during the summer. It can be planted as soon as the frosts end and the ground warms up enough. Before sowing parsley seeds, you need to prepare a small plot of land where you want to plant it. Make grooves with a small distance between them. Plant the seeds as close to each other as possible, this is done so that the parsley sprouts very often and thickly, and cover it with the same soil, so that the seeds are not very deep in the ground. After you have planted the seeds, be sure to water them with a small amount of water.
It is best to cover it with polyethylene before germination so that the seeds germinate as quickly as possible. After the first shoots sprout, the polyethylene must be removed. Then water it not very often, but you also shouldn’t overdry the soil, as it will later become bitter and the taste will not be at the highest level. Be sure to loosen between the furrows and weed so that it does not become overgrown with weeds. As soon as parsley grows at least 10-12 cm, it can already be eaten and prepared in a variety of dishes. This will happen around mid-June, as parsley grows very quickly.
Since parsley is a biennial plant, in the first year you should only remove the leaves by cutting them with scissors, and in the second year you must also remove the root vegetables. It should be removed long before the first frost occurs; it is best to do this at the end of August. Since parsley is very afraid of frost, it loses most of its beneficial vitamins and presentation. The cut leaves are tied into bunches and dried, and then finely pounded or ground to be added later to food as spices. Some people chop the leaves finely, add salt and put them tightly in jars and store them in the refrigerator, but in this form they don’t last very long, up to 150 days.
“Growing on a stone” is the literal translation from Latin of the name parsley. Indeed, the culture is unpretentious to the soil, undemanding in care, has medicinal properties and is able to grow greenery until late autumn. The only difficulty in its cultivation is the duration of germination. seeds, which is why gardeners are looking for all sorts of ways to achieve faster germination.
Growing parsley ( if you turn on the germination process seeds) long lasting. It will take at least two to three weeks for the seed material to sprout, and then only under favorable weather conditions.
As is known, seeds Parsley has a strong characteristic odor, which is caused by the essential oils covering the shell of the seeds. To get rid of them, the seed is soaked in water for a certain time, while the oils leave seeds, and they are ready for the fastest germination.
In central Ukraine, cultivation of root and leaf species of parsley is practiced. In turn, leaf crops are divided into ordinary and curly. Wondering how to grow parsley and which type to choose for cultivation, it is necessary to proceed from those characteristics of the variety that are more acceptable for the given area.
Basically, gardeners give preference to leafy species, since greens contain a huge amount of useful substances, both vitamins and mineral salts. But many summer residents cultivate root species of parsley, which are used in stewing dishes, pickled and fried, and they contain no less useful vitamins and minerals.
It's important to remember that growing parsley can be carried out all year round, whether in beds or on the balcony in boxes with soil. Its timing sowing are extended over time, so seed can be sown even in winter, observing the germination time of the crop. Podzimny sowing involves planting the seeds in the soil two weeks before the first frost, so that seeds didn't have time to germinate.
Light soil enriched with humus is ideal for growing crops, and therefore the soil is dug up in the fall, a loose cushion is prepared for sowing, and if there is not enough moisture, it is watered abundantly. After all, an indispensable condition for the germination of seed material is moisture.
Certain deadlines when to sow parsley, does not exist, because the seed material is able to begin its germination already at +1-5 o C. The culture is cold-resistant, therefore seedling It easily tolerates even slight frosts.
Preparation with emyan before planting begins with sorting them. To do this, the seeds are soaked in water, when they swell, they are placed in a canvas bag and placed in the refrigerator for a week (this is called cold shock). Such seeds will germinate faster, and harvest will be significantly higher than usual.
Ways to quickly grow parsley
Traditional methods of planting parsley and germinating it very quickly (within 3 hours) have been known for a long time. To do this, take heated milk (+37 o C), soak parsley seeds in it for about 12 hours. The soil into which the seeds will be sown is sprinkled with quicklime, finely ground lime and dug up. This process is done twice, after which the soil is loosened by hand. The seeds are taken out of the milk, dried and sown in prepared furrows to a depth of 1-2 cm. After which the crops are watered, being careful not to flood them.
Most gardeners cover their beds with film, this way it is more reliable to retain moisture. But if you are sure that there is plenty of it, then you don’t have to cover it.
Another method is when the seed material is soaked in cold water, the essential oils are almost not washed off, so take very hot water (not boiling water) and pour it over the seeds. After this procedure, the seeds are left in ordinary water overnight, and their germination is significantly accelerated.
Another interesting folk method is how to quickly grow parsley, which involves placing the seed for a short time (15-20 minutes) in ordinary 40° vodka. In this case, the layer of essential oils quickly dissolves, and the seeds are ready for planting. Before sowing, they are washed with running water and dried. This processing method allows you to speed up the germination of seeds by half.
Growing parsley on the windowsill is not new for city dwellers, because having your own greens all year round is a pleasant pleasure.
To do this, take a box with rich soil and fill it with hot water. Then you need to make grooves and plant the seeds prepared using one of the methods described above, and cover the top with soil no more than 1 cm. In the future, constant watering (once every two days) in the morning and evening. After the seedlings appear, water daily.
Once the plants reach 12 cm, you can harvest the greens. If the crop is grown in the autumn-winter period, then it needs additional lighting, since planting parsley requires long daylight hours.
Plant growth stimulants are popular due to their effectiveness and low price. The drugs are used both for rapid growth and to increase productivity. That is, when using growth regulators, you can not only grow greens in the shortest possible time, but also get the highest quality harvest.
A number of preparations (biological preparations) make it possible to saturate the soil with useful substances. As a result of creating favorable conditions, beneficial bacteria develop in the soil; they have a positive effect on plants, including parsley. By activating biochemical processes, they help speed up the growing process. Other owls, time, when to plant parsley, can be varied, and, for example, it is not necessary to use early spring sowing to get early greens. Also, in soil treated with a biological product, the risk of developing dangerous pests is reduced, but beneficial organisms such as earthworms will live in the soil.
As you can see, there are many simple and accessible methods using which you can, without much effort, grow the healthy and aromatic crop of parsley on your own - one of the most popular spices in Ukraine.
