PARSLEY: PLANTING AND GROWING
Parsley can be very slow to germinate, and no doubt much of its reputation of being hard to grow stems from this. It can take anywhere from five days to eight weeks, and must be kept moist all the time. An old English phrase says it goes nine times to the Devil and back before it germinates; and he likes it so much he keeps some of it. I have always found it much easier than its reputation suggests, if a good potting mixture is used in the seed box. This gives the shoot no hard crust of soil or sand to force its way through, and my parsley seedlings have never taken longer than 14 days. Soaking the seed in warm water first is also recommended before planting, but I have found a simple way to get the same effect. Sow your parsley seed on soil that has been soaked with water, cover with about i inch of seed-box mixture, then place the box out in the hottest sunny spot with a sheet of clear polythene plastic over the top in which a few air holes have been cut. Leave the box out all day, and your parsley seed should by nightfall have got the message. Next day and afterwards, just give it the usual seed-box care.
Ample nitrogen is needed for parsley to produce abundant leaves, so keep the compost content of your soil very high, with any animal manures you can lay your hands on, too. It will grow well in a trough or pot, and unit-dwellers will find it a herb they can have success with: a sunny or partially shaded balcony suits it very well.
The leaves dry easily in a luke-warm oven. Rub them through your hands to crumble them when dry, and store for convenience near your food preparation area in the kitchen, to remind you to use parsley with a liberal hand.
So many recipes abound where parsley is used that here I will give you only a tasty seventeenth-century one.
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