parsley

When to sow parsley?

Botanical name
Petroselinum crispum
Family
Apiaceae

Parsley is sown outdoors from April to August, 1 cm deep. It germinates in 20 to 30 days. It is harvested from May to October.

Parsley is a biennial plant. The edible parts are the roots, leaves and flowers.

parsley
Photo: H. Zell · CC BY-SA 3.0

Parsley through the year

JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
Indoor sowing
Transplanting
Outdoor sowing
Harvest
15913172125293337414549
  • indoor sowing
  • transplanting
  • outdoor sowing
  • harvest

In short

Outdoor sowing
from April to August
weeks 14 to 35
the window opens six weeks before the last frost
Indoor sowing
from February to April
weeks 9 to 17
Transplanting
from April to June
weeks 16 to 26
the window opens four weeks before the last frost
Sowing depth
1 cm
Spacing in the row
15 to 30 cm
20 to 30 cm between rows
Germination
20 to 30 days
Germination temperature
10 °C
Days to maturity
75 days
Harvest
from May to October
weeks 20 to 44
Repeat sowing
every 21 days

The last frost is not on the same day everywhere, so the recorded weeks are a guide and not a date.

Growing conditions

🪨
Soil
loamy
🧪
pH
6 to 7
☀️
Sun
full sun
💧
Water
moderate water
❄️
Frost
tolerates light frost
🌱
Nutrients
a moderate feeder
🔁
Crop rotation
no sooner than the fourth year
📏
Height
20 to 90 cm

Companions in the bed

Companion planting is tradition and not an agronomic claim. What is recorded is which pairs sources recommend and which they advise against.

eggplant cited

Space used well: the parsley stays low under the aubergine.

  • “Cited” means the pair is named by one source or two.

Pests and diseases

Listed here is every problem for which the sources name this plant as a host. The problems are not listed in order of how common they are.

Carrot fly

pest
Signs
Just under the skin of the root there are rusty pits and tunnels, with small yellowish larvae in them. The top can turn yellow. An attacked root is no use in store and rots quickly.
Prevention
Sow thinly, so that you do not have to thin out, because the smell at thinning is what draws the females in. Sow later and harvest earlier to dodge the first and the second generation. Keep to a rotation, because the fly hatches from the soil.
What to do
Cover the whole bed with fine insect mesh from sowing on. Covering the whole bed is more reliable than a vertical barrier along it.

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Related plants

The plants below are in the same botanical family (Apiaceae).

Sources about the plant: Alabama Cooperative Extension System, Bayerische Landesanstalt für Weinbau und Gartenbau, Clemson Cooperative Extension, GBIF Backbone Taxonomy, Johnny's Selected Seeds, KGZS, NC State Extension Plant Toolbox, Royal Horticultural Society, Semenarna Ljubljana, Smernice za strokovno utemeljeno gnojenje (Mihelič et al., MKGP 2011), University of Georgia Extension, University of Maryland Extension, University of Wisconsin-Madison Division of Extension, Wikidata. Checked between 14 and 30 August 2026. The problem descriptions also draw on: EPPO Global Database.