To parsley grows well in the garden or on the balcony, it needs a lot of nutrients. It is best to provide nutritious soil right at the time of sowing. Under no circumstances should you fertilize the herbs with fresh compost or manure.
Parsley grows slowly
Parsley is one of the slow growing plants. Impatient gardeners who find the growth too slow, tend to fertilize the herbs to encourage them to grow.
However, this is not appropriate for parsley. Too much and the wrong fertilizer is more likely to cause the plants to die or lose flavor.
Just give parsley the time it needs to grow and be sparing with fertilizer.
Fertilize parsley outdoors
With good soil preparation, you won’t need to fertilize parsley outdoors at all, at least the first year. Prepare the soil by
- Loosening the soil deeply
- Working in mature compost or mature manure
- Spreading a layer of soil over the fertilizer
- If the soil is very acidic, add a little lime
When planting parsley, plant the seedlings so that the roots do not touch the compost layer.
Perennial parsley will tolerate a light application of fertilizer in the form of mature compost, horn meal or horn shavings in the fall.(26,00€ at Amazon*)
Fertilize parsley in a pot
Potting soil leaches much faster than soil in the open. If you cultivate parsley in a pot on the balcony or kitchen window, you can give some liquid fertilizer once a month.
Special organic-based plant fertilizers that you can get at your local garden supply store work well.
If the parsley does not want to grow at all
In the rarest cases, lack of growth is due to a lack of nutrients. Most often, the wrong site conditions are the cause.
If the parsley turns yellow, it may be that the soil is too acidic. This often happens when there are a lot of conifers growing in the garden. The needles spread on the soil and cause over-acidity.
In this case, it is useful to lime the soil around the parsley. Lime neutralizes the acidity and creates better soil conditions for the seasoning plant.
Tips & Tricks
Shortly before harvesting, you should no longer give fertilizer. The taste of the aromatic herb changes due to fertilizers.
