Plain Parsley

An Intro to Parsley

MY STATUS: Grown Successfully to Harvest

Parsley is a member of the carrot family (it looks pretty similar to the sprigs above a carrot, doesn't it?). It's biennial, which means--in the latitudes where it is typically grown--it lives just two years before it flowers, goes to seed, and dies. But . . . who knows what it will do on Pohnpei, where there are no real seasonal changes? I sure don't.

SUNNY, HOT & DRY

Like many of the common herbs, parsley digs the Mediterranean climate, which is hot, sunny, and relatively dry. Very dry when contrasted with ultra-soggy Pohnpei. It will do best with 6-8 hours of direct sun a day. Again, the experts are talking about 6-8 hours of direct temperate sun, and since the sun 6 degrees north of the equator is so much angrier, it's possible that it will do fine with 3-4 hours of good Pohnpei sun. We'll have to wait and see.

RICH SOIL

Parsley likes well-drained soil rich in organic material, so it's not going to thrive in Pohnpei's nutrient-poor high-alkaline soil without some extra compost or manure. Luckily you can either buy that stuff at the hardware store or make it yourself.

MOIST, BUT NOT WET

It needs to be watered regularly, especially at the beginning, but in small amounts. The soil should be moist, but never wet. Therefore, you're not going to want to put it out where it will be exposed to rain. That will quickly drown the plants or cause their roots to rot off.

Seeds are very slow to germinate. It can take 21-28 days. But if you read on, you'll see that mine took only 8 days! Maybe it's that Pohnpei sun.

Some people say when they are 2-3 inches tall, the plants should be thinned out so they're 2-5 inches apart. But, as the plants grow, you can always keep them from getting over-crowded by harvesting. I don't plant to thin mine.

When fully mature, parsley plants can be 2 feet tall or taller. The leaves usually taste the best the first year. To harvest, snip off stalks close to the ground, beginning with the outer stalks. Never remove more than 1/3 of the total plant.

What I Did

As with the other herb seeds, I used Ferry-Morse Start Smart seeds from Home Depot in Southern California ($1.59), which I purchased in late January (they vary the seed sub-species by season). I have to admit I wasn't super hopeful about these. Everything I read said that parsley is tricky to grow from seed and that it often just doesn't germinate. The package said germination time was 21-28 days, so I was expecting to wait at least a month.

DAY 0 - SOAKING SEEDS

I filled a Tupperwear with warm tap water and soaked my seeds in it over-night. This was recommended on a number of web sites as well as on the package instructions. It seems that parsley seeds need a little warmth to wake up.

DAY 1 - SOWING

I didn't read up enough on the seeding of parsley before starting, discovering after the fact that parsley does better if you seed it straight into your pot or the ground so no transplantation is necessary. I seeded in a paper egg container. There seemed to be a lot of very fine seeds, so I filled all twelve sections with Miracle Grow Garden Soil from Pohnpei Ace Hardware ($5.99 per bag) and sprinkled a few of the seeds in each section, before covering them with a thin layer of soil.

DAYS 2-7

I moved the egg container around on our narrow porch so that it got maximum sunlight. That varied from day-to-day, but typically it got at least 4 solid hours of direct Pohnpei sun per day which adds up to more than 4 hours of sun at a temperate latitude. The sun here is wicked intense. At night or any time it looked like rain was imminent, I brought the seeds inside. I kept the soil moist but not wet, using a little cough syrup measuring cup to water precisely.

DAY 8 - GERMINATION

I was pretty darn surprised to see green poking up from several of the sections early on the 8th morning--first because I didn't expect them to germinate at all and second because they weren't supposed to do so for at least 13 more days!

DAY 9 - 1/2 INCH SEEDLINGS

Most of the seedlings were about a 1/2 inch tall by the end of the afternoon (below), which was much faster growth than expected--especially considering parsley is a biennial. As everyone predicted, the germination rate was low. There were only seedlings in about half of the egg cups and nowhere near as many in each as the other herbs I seeded. I'd say the success rate was less than 30%.

DAY 11 - TRANSPLANTATION

Okay. So I got impatient and probably jumped the gun on the transplantation. I had prepared my pot and was anxious to get the little guys in there. Now, everything I've read since seeding says that parsley, like cilantro, doesn't transplant well. The stress of separating out each seedling, as you do with most of the other herbs, is usually too much for the parsley to handle. I figured I would just cut each of the egg cups apart and plant them, since the paper would break down pretty fast and the roots would just push through it when the plants got bigger. Problem is, the soil was a little crumbly, maybe a little on the dry side, and when I tried to cut up my egg container, things got ugly. In the end, I lost some of my already sparse seedlings. I got about 4-5 nice clumps in the pot, though (below left).

SOIL PREPARATION & PLANTING:

• I used a deep pot, but one with a medium circumference--about 1 gallon. 
• I put about two inches of coarse basalt gravel in the bottom to encourage good drainage of the soil. 
• Next, I added a 1-inch layer of steer manure. 
• I filled the rest of the pot with a mixture of local soil, store-bought garden soil, and Miracle Grow Potting Mix.

DAY 12

Everything still looks alive and there are even some new seedlings pushing up from my transplanted clumps. :) Yay! All is not lost.

DAY 13

Surprisingly, the parsley seems to be tolerating my botched transplant quite well. It looks much better, and more seeds have germinated since I put it in the pot.

DAY 14

The plants are really thriving. New sprouts are coming up every morning and the leaves are green and healthy. There are a few leaves coming out, but mostly it's just the cotyledons thus far (right). Compare that with Day 11!

DAY 24

Success! The parsley continues to spread and put out lots of true leaves (below). It's certainly happy. And, hey, this is Day 24; the stuff wasn't even supposed to germinate until a couple of days ago.

DAY 29 - APPLICATION OF FISH EMULSION

I began fertilizing with Alaska Fish Emulsion with very nice results (below). I'll repeat this each time I water for several days.

DAY 38

This plant has certainly defied every expectation I could have had. Not only has it grown very quickly, but it has been one of the easiest plants to maintain. All I do is fertilize once in a while and keep the soil moist. It's big enough that I could probably stand to do some harvesting soon (below).

DAY 43

Bushier and bushier (right)! I think I'm going to hack at it tomorrow. The way to harvest is to cut stalks near the dirt, never cutting more than 1/3rd of the total plant bunch.

DAY 70

What can I say? Parsley loves Pohnpei! This is certainly the fastest growing plant I have (tomatoes aside). And as I find fewer uses for its rather strongly-flavored leaves than my other herbs, I find that I almost can't keep up with it. It needs to be massacred once in awhile or hacked at daily. It absolutely loves brutal-ass direct sun. Kinda surprising. It also seems to be adept at spreading. I never expected the tiny patches of seedlings would look like this after my botched transplant. But apparently they have no hard feelings. In the salad they go then. That's how we thank a plant over here. :)

DAY 162

I think I need to find more recipes that use parsley, because these plants of mine are out of control. I just can't use it fast enough. I'm feeling like it needs a major cut-back.

DAY 202 (9/1) - ROOT-ROT

Some leaks in my garden shelter roof led to over-watering of the parsley. I didn't notice it right away. Then some of the leaves started going yellow. I checked them and found that their roots were rotting. I pulled out anything on the way to dying and moved the pot away from the leaky spot. Things are quickly recovering.  The pot isn't quite as full as before, but it's making a comeback.