Easy Gardening - Parsley Varieties

By D. Perse

Parsley is one of the most well known herbs and also one of the easiest to use. It tastes fresh and its flavor goes with almost any food except deserts. You can sprinkle it on your eggs or add it to almost any other dish on your menu. You can use it fresh or dry, year-round. It also beautifully embellishes your dinner plate sprinkled chopped on top of the food or as side decoration.

We know and grow three parsley varieties:

• Curly parsley or curly leaf parsley
• Italian parsley or flat leaf parsley
• Hamburg parsley

Curly parsley is bright green, its leaves more or less tightly curled and coarser than the leaves of Italian parsley. It is restaurant chefs’ favorite for garnishing. Curly leaf parsley’s growth is compact, usually not very vigorous, the stems are quite short and it therefore makes and excellent edging in flower beds. Its color is a perfect match to hot pink, bright orange, red and yellow blooms.

Italian parsley grows usually taller, more vigorous and has more taste than the curly kind. Flat leaf parsley is glossy green, its leaves softer (and easier to chew on while eaten fresh), on longer stems. It shouldn’t miss in anyone’s garden. Flat-leaved parsley fits in your flower bed as well and works great for filling blank spots in your perennial border.

Hamburg parsley is more often used and grown in Europe. On top of flat, great tasting leaves, its parsnip-like root is also edible. The root can be used fresh (sliced or grated in your salad) or cooked in any soup or stew. Hamburg parsley’s root has a distinctive, peppery taste. Which parsley variety to choose is completely up to you and what you want to use this great herb for. All three are rich in vitamins A and C. They all grow in sun to partial shade, in well drained soil. While you can easily find flat and curly leaf seedlings in any nursery, it’s very unlikely to find the Hamburg parsley so you’ll have to grow this gem from seeds.

See parsley photos at: http://dariasworld.info/photo_parsley.htm

Copyright © 2007 D. Perse. All rights reserved.

D. Perse is a student of Herbology at Clayton College of Natural Health, passionate about growing herbs and collecting interesting facts about them, including history and legends, medicinal uses, recipes, growing tips and more. Website http://www.dariasworld.info is devoted to herbs and offers tons of free information for the purpose of educating and empowering, never to diagnose, prescribe or treat. Because one's health is in one's own hands.

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