Our gardening expert on how to get the best crop of this popular herb
That clean, green, mineral-like flavour of flat-leaf parsley in winter, particularly in salads, is one of the ways I hold dear to getting through the darker months. It’s rich in iron, vitamin A and C, several B complexes, packed with flavonoids and has a long history of aiding digestion.
For such a health-giving herb, parsley has long been marred by strange superstitions and devilish ways. Apparently, one of the reasons it is notoriously slow to germinate (and it can take over a month) is because the seed has to visit the devil several times first, often forgetting to come back from the underworld. In reality, this is just the vagaries of being in the Apiaceae family: it is notorious for having seed with underdeveloped embryos, which results in patchy germination.