I grow all sorts of stuff. Berries, apples, tomatoes, basil. A lot are eaten by critters, and in general, it hasn’t been very successful. But this year, I picked up a tray of parsley, and put it in the pot I used for chard last year.
Wow! All year long I had fresh parsley handy by. I never had rotting parsley in the bottom of the crisper, either. I harvested some today, despite several weeks of below-freezing weather, and while some leaves were dead, some looked nice and tasted delicious.
I had no idea parsley could take such cold. Looking it up, I see it’s hardy down to about 10 degrees F which is pretty icy. I’ve kept it over the winter but brought inside to some south-facing windows. Parsley is one of those herbs that makes a huge difference but is often left off home cooked meals for being so perishable. Having a live plant is great since you can always clip a few sprigs that the plant doesn’t seem to miss at all.
We plant several instances of both curly and Italian parsley. We leave a few of them large and healthy. All winter, we can harvest off them, assuming there isn’t too much snow and we cannot get to them. Same with thyme (oregano makes it for a bit but doesn’t make it all winter as well). This is around 49 deg north.
My wife lets it go to seed and then shakes the seeds into a paper bag and then scatters them in another part of the garden in the spring. Plus, the parsley moved itself to an unused part of our yard.
Got some last night as a garnish for dinner.
Huh, I have thyme, which I mostly use as groundcover, although I do use it for cooking in season. I don’t feel like fresh thyme is enough better than dry thyme to justify digging it up in the winter. I typically “harvest” some when it grows wildly out of the bounds I want it in, and let some of that dry knock the leaves into a spice bottle with they are dry enough to snap free of the stems.
Aren’t they like tomato horn worm caterpillars? You get a small number of large hungry pests, and you can just remove them by hand if you are paying attention?
