Parsley is a spicy representative of greens, revered in any family. It is not surprising that many gardeners are interested in growing this plant. Frost resistance of parsley allows you to plant it almost all year round, and planting in the winter has several advantages. However, in order to get a plentiful harvest, you need to know the subtleties and nuances of growing.
Benefits
Sowing parsley before winter has a list of advantages due to which the late cultivation technique is so popular:
- Abundant harvest. Surviving the autumn frosts and winter frosts, the seeds become much more hardy, stronger and healthier, which implies a high germination rate.
- Speed. With parsley planted before winter, you can get a crop as soon as possible. He is much ahead of his spring counterparts and leaves earlier for 3-4 weeks. Snow cover allows the plant not to freeze, and the first spring sun and heat will allow it to quickly grow and mature.
- Universality. The soil in which parsley was grown can be reused, which not every crop can boast of.
- Time saving. In the spring, when active farming activity begins on the planting of other plants, more time will be freed for these tasks, since it will not need to be spent on planting parsley.
Suitable time
On average, the best time to plant parsley in the winter is late October or early November. However, depending on the climatic conditions and temperature regime of the region, a significant day can be approximated or delayed.
Greenery should be planted before the first frost, therefore, with the onset of October, it is recommended to closely monitor weather forecasts. The night temperature, fluctuating within 2-3 degrees below zero, is a signal that it is time to plant parsley.
Seed preparation
The high content of essential oils in parsley seeds determines its long germination period. Therefore, in order to feast on homemade greens as soon as possible, planting material must be properly prepared in advance:
- The first stage of preparation is the careful selection and rejection of seeds. Among all their number, it is necessary to select the best representatives. Damaged, spoiled, low-quality seeds should be removed from the general cluster without any fear.
To accelerate the emergence of seedlings, you can briefly hold the planting material in a disinfectant solution. For this purpose, a solution of boric acid, copper sulfate or potassium permanganate can be used.
- The next step is soaking. To do this, wrap the seeds in moist gauze folded in several layers. In this form, they should lie, on average, about 5 days. It is also important to maintain the temperature regime - room temperature (22-25 degrees above zero) should be kept in the place of soaking of planting material throughout the entire period of soaking.
- As soon as the seeds germinate, leave them still in wet gauze, but this time reduce the temperature to low levels - no more than 2 degrees of heat, for hardening. For this, germinated seeds are placed on the lower shelf of the refrigerator for 7-10 days. At the end of this time, the material is completely ready for landing.
Hardening of the seeds will come in handy if planting parsley is planned for the winter, although it is not mandatory.
There are also other methods of seed preparation used by gardeners and farmers less often, but not less effective:
- Bubbling. The procedure aimed at disinfecting planting material, a sharp acceleration of emergence of seedlings and increase germination. To do this, the seeds are soaked in cool (about 20 ° C) water, which the compressor continuously saturates with oxygen or air.
- Vernalization. This method is also aimed at accelerating the growth of parsley. For its implementation, the swollen seeds of the plant are kept at a low positive temperature for a short time (for example, at night), and then at room temperature (during the day). Spring vernalization is carried out for 7-10 days.
- Panning. For this, a special agricultural unit - a pellet mill is required. The essence of the technique is to envelop the seeds with a protective nutritious shell in the shape of a ball. As a rule, a complex of humus, peat and mineral fertilizers is used. Dragee coating will provide easy seeding of parsley with minimal time and effort.
Seat selection
Properly chosen place for planting is one of the three components of successful parsley cultivation in the cold season. To choose the right site, you should adhere to such criteria:
- The first criterion for a successful location is illumination. The greenery is quite unpretentious to the growing conditions, and even in the shade it will feel comfortable enough. However, a sufficient amount of light will allow you to collect a larger crop. Therefore, for planting, it is better to choose a site where daylight hours will be the longest. Open area in this case would be the best choice.
If earlier onion, tomato, potato, cabbage or garlic grew on a potential planting site, this will be a significant advantage. But if earlier carrots were grown on this site, it is better to find another place.
- The second criterion for a good place is snow. The more snow at a potential landing site in winter, the better. Snow will provide reliable protection of parsley from severe winter frosts and maintain the level of humidity it needs.
- The final selection criteria are conditions that pose a risk to seedlings. Of course, parsley needs some moisture, but this does not mean that the plant will tolerate its excess. Therefore, areas where there is a risk of flooding are not suitable for growing this greenery. This rule also applies to overly windy places.
Soil preparation
The last component of a plentiful and high-quality parsley crop in the spring is the soil that has been properly prepared since the summer, which must be cultivated and fertile.
To create the ideal soil for sowing parsley in the winter, you need to perform several steps:
- Immediately after collecting the plants grown at the site of the future planting of greens, treat the soil with superphosphate and potassium salt in a concentration not exceeding 20 grams of the substance per 1 square meter of the plot.
- To fertilize. It is strongly discouraged to use clean manure for this purpose. But the combination of rotted manure and sand will allow parsley to grow and develop without the risk of rotting seeds. The soil from this fertilizer will conduct moisture well and will easily loosen.
- Thoroughly and efficiently loosen the soil.
- To improve the quality of the top layer of the earth by “diluting” it with sand or peat. This should be done carefully so that the soil remains soft, airy, not tamped.
Sowing
You can plant parsley in the winter either directly in the garden or at home. Before planting, you should be prepared for high material costs: seeds will need a third more than during spring or summer planting. Winter is a harsh season, and despite frost resistance of parsley and preliminary hardening, on average only 70% of the planted seeds germinate.
On the open ground
Planting parsley in the garden will not be difficult even for a novice farmer who needs to complete only 4 steps:
- If the seeds have been pre-soaked and successfully passed the preparatory stage, they need to be given some time to dry and get rid of excess moisture. A few hours will be enough.
- Moisten the soil with a little watering.
- Now you can start sowing. To do this, plant the seeds in the ground to a depth of not more than 1 centimeter. When immersing seeds, it is important to maintain a distance: between rows of future parsley should be at least 15 centimeters, and between bushes - about 3 centimeters.
To speed up the appearance of the first seedlings, you can cover the beds of greens with polyethylene and remove it when the sprouts appear. Such a shelter will help maintain the optimum temperature for greens.
- Mulch future plants with a three-centimeter layer.
Subject to all the conditions for proper planting (an optimally selected site, correctly prepared seeds and well-made fertilizer), after one and a half weeks you can find the first shoots. Dry seed may take a little longer.
At home
Due to the lack of a garden or land, or due to other reasons for which it is not possible to grow parsley on open ground, it can also be grown at home, using boxes and pots, which should be quite spacious.
To sow greens under the winter at home, you must follow these steps:
- Soak the seeds. To do this, warm the water to 38 degrees Celsius and leave the planting material in it for 3 days. Every 12 hours, water must be replaced with the same hot water.
- Cover the bottom of the container with a drainage mixture (a combination of pebbles and expanded clay is suitable) with a layer of several centimeters.
You can use quality fertilized soil from the garden, if there is an opportunity to get one. Otherwise, universal soil from the store will do.
- Pour water and gently ram the resulting home-made bed.
- Make small furrows in the ground, about 1 centimeter deep, and then proceed directly to the landing. A pleasant bonus of planting parsley at home is the fact that it can be sown more compactly in a container: about 10 centimeters between rows. Between future bushes there will be enough distance of a couple of centimeters.
- Sprinkle the seedlings with a small layer of soil and place the container with seeds in a well-lit place, for example, the windowsill of the east or south side, to ensure a sufficient level of lighting.
- Constantly maintain a suitable temperature for parsley, fluctuating within 15-20 degrees of heat. Deviations in the smaller direction lead to a slowdown in plant growth, in the larger - to dry. In the absence of the ability to provide sufficient light at home, it is possible to use a conventional table lamp, which must be placed at a distance of about half a meter from a drawer or pot with seedlings.
Once the bushes reach 10 centimeters in height, you can safely harvest: such parsley is already suitable for consumption.
Care
Until the first sprouts hatch above the ground, the care and care of parsley is reduced to the gardener's attentive attitude to watering and ventilation. Watering seedlings should be regular, as the soil dries, but not too abundantly. Uninvited guests in the form of weeds should be removed upon first detection.
In case of sudden severe frosts, parsley can be covered with a special agronomic fiber, which allows air to pass through well.
As soon as the first 2-3 real leaflets appear, you can proceed to weeding and thin out. Any manipulations must be carried out carefully by the farmer, trying not to damage the fragile and vulnerable plant and its root system.
So that parsley can form full-fledged leaf sockets, it must be fed twice: when the first leaves appear and as soon as a full-fledged small rosette is formed. For these purposes, fertilizer is used, made from mullein or compost in the ratio of 9 liters of water per 1 kilogram of organic matter. It will not be superfluous to add 15 grams of potassium sulfate and superphosphate.
Timely watering, loosening, thinning and fertilizing parsley are excellent preventive measures for the diseases of this plant. However, sometimes it can be infected:
- white spotting;
- brown rot;
- powdery mildew;
- peronosporosis;
- early burn;
- rust.
If any suspicious formations are found on the plant, it must be processed. To do this, use a weak (1%) solution of Bordeaux liquid, which must be treated with all the green parts of the parsley. Spraying with a 1% solution of colloidal sulfur helps rid the plant of powdery mildew especially effectively.
Harvesting and storage
Parsley should be collected gradually: as it ripens and is necessary. A rational attitude to collecting leaves and roots will provide the gardener with fresh and tasty aromatic herbs for a long time.
Storage methods for parsley leaves may vary depending on your needs. For long-term preservation of the crop, greens can be frozen or dried. And if you need the spice in the near future, then just put it in the refrigerator or prepare in oil.
The roots of the plant should be stored in a wooden box and a cool place. For better safety, it is strongly recommended that they be covered with sawdust or sand.
The best varieties
Not every parsley variety will tolerate sowing in the winter. Therefore, in the case of choosing this particular technique, it is worth paying attention to the following leaf-hardy varieties:
- Hero;
- Breeze;
- Carnival;
- Curly leaf;
- Common leaf;
- Esmeralda.
Root varieties with fewer hard leaves can also be successfully sown in late autumn. The following varieties will give a particularly good crop under such conditions:
- Alba
- Berlin;
- Good morning;
- Piquant;
- Sugar
- Harvest.
Any, even a beginner, gardener can grow parsley. This unpretentious plant feels equally good in cold autumn and frosty winter. Sowing this spicy greenery in the winter will allow you to get a generous and high-quality crop in the early spring, when other plants are just starting to plant.