Hi All,
I am a relatively new gardener and, among other things, have planted Parsely in a plastic pot on my rooftop deck in New York City. A few weeks ago I noticed the regular parsley leaves were doing very weel, but that the plants had started sprouting long, thick(er) stems with flowers on top. I was not sure if the leaves on these thck stems would produce good parsley or not. I actually removed the stems thinking the flowering parsley would be no good. However, the plants continue to grow these stems and now it seemsas if the original leafy parsley has ceased growing.
Will the parsely resume growing? Should I allow the long stems to continue to grow and reap the leaves that come from them? Should I just buy new plants?
Thanks for the help,
Tom
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greg draiss
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Digthedirt
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hendi_alex
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Parsely is a biennial. That means that the plants grow one year and then grow, bloom, seed and die the second year. If you plant parsely seeds too early in the season, they think that they have already been growing for a full year, and they get tricked into flowering after only a few months of growth. You can cull the thick flowering stems, but they will continue to shoot up anew.
IMO the best strategy is to plant a succession of a few pots of parsely. About the time that your early parsely is ready to flower, you have young vigorous new plants to replace them, and those should produce all through the summer, winter, and won't flower and seed until the next spring. Parsely grows and can be harvested in the winter here in zone 8. For me, it tends to do better (during the winter) in a cold frame on the south side of a building though.
I think that you will find young, tender, fast growing parsely to be much milder and less prone to bitterness than the parsely that is spending so much energy trying to make seeds.
IMO the best strategy is to plant a succession of a few pots of parsely. About the time that your early parsely is ready to flower, you have young vigorous new plants to replace them, and those should produce all through the summer, winter, and won't flower and seed until the next spring. Parsely grows and can be harvested in the winter here in zone 8. For me, it tends to do better (during the winter) in a cold frame on the south side of a building though.
I think that you will find young, tender, fast growing parsely to be much milder and less prone to bitterness than the parsely that is spending so much energy trying to make seeds.
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cheshirekat
- Senior Member
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