Chervil will quickly become your favorites in the herb garden because it is so easy to grow, it is available early and it tastes extremely delicious. Here you can find out the most important things about sowing, caring for and using the chervil.
Table of Contents
Growing chervil
Chervil, especially the annual garden chervil that is grown here most often, is grown anew from seeds every year. Because it was bred from one of the chervil varieties that do not rely on a long lifespan, but on fast reproduction through seeds. These chervil will die after the second season at the latest, so it is really not worthwhile to multiply the plants here. Because it is only intended for a short life, the chervil also develops willingly and quickly from seeds. If it wants to continue, it has to produce leaves and flowers very quickly.
sowing
Sowing chervil can be done quite early. Chervil can cope well with our climate and will even survive a bit of cold as a seedling. In mild areas it can therefore be sown directly into the garden bed as early as the beginning of March. If your climate is rather harsh and you have to fear even worse frost, you can grow the chervil on the windowsill at this time and prefer it.
The advantage is that you can then plant well-developed chervil plants in the bed after the ice saints in mid-May. However, the fact that chervil actually does not want to be transplanted after sowing speaks against it. This is because it is one of the so-called local plants that very quickly develop a very fine root system on which certain mycorrhizal fungi then settle, which help the chervil to thrive. By transplanting you would destroy this fine structure. So it is at most conceivable that you put the grown chervil with the entire ball from the pot in the garden soil.
If you don’t really want to harvest chervil particularly early, however, you should save yourself the hassle. You can simply sow the first chervil directly in the garden a little later, if the climate allows it. Even then, you won’t have to wait long for the harvest. Chervil grows quite quickly. It can be harvested after about two months. Make sure that the seed you are planting is really fresh. Chervil seed does not germinate much more than a year.
A good trick is to sow chervil one by one, this will ensure a fairly long harvest time. You can do this well into October. You can harvest the chervil sown in the garden until the first frost. But it goes on: If you want to harvest fresh chervil leaves in winter too, sow chervil in pots right now. Ideally, every 14 days and in sandy compost soil. These then move to the window of a bright, cool room when the first night frosts threaten. With around five pots, the winter supply of a three-person household with fresh chervil is ensured.
Substrate
Chervil feels good in any normal soil and will thrive there too. However, it grows best in deep soils rich in humus. The soil should be well drained, however, if the soil is too dense or loamy, you could loosen it up a little with some quartz sand or perlite. In very nutrient-poor soil, a little compost should be mixed in before sowing. The soil should be well moistened before sowing.
The location should be in partial shade if possible, in nature the chervil prefers to grow on well-shaded forest edges. But chervil is also quite an all-rounder in terms of location. It also tolerates fairly sunny locations, as long as they are not in the full midday sun in such a way that the fine leaves burn. Kerbel would prefer to have his location to himself. It is one of the few plants that does not like to share a bed in mixed culture with other vegetables.
The light germ is sown superficially, the seeds are only lightly pressed and not covered with earth.
Caring for the chervil
When the chervil is sown you do not need to water the seeds, but you have to keep the soil evenly moist for the next time if the chervil is to develop well. Not too damp, it doesn’t like standing in the wet either, but a properly dried-out soil would quickly destroy your chervil if a little heat is added to it.
If you want to speed up the germination of the chervil, you can cover the bed with fleece for a few weeks. When the seedlings are about 10 cm high, you should thin out the chervil, each individual plant should be about 15 cm from the next, otherwise there will be a battle for the nutrients and stress.
Now all you need to do is water regularly; what grows quickly also needs a lot of water.
Harvest chervil
After six to eight weeks the time has come and you can harvest the first tender young shoots. If you sow in batches, this will now continue into November.
This is also the best method for maximum enjoyment, chervil simply tastes best fresh.
If you dry it, it loses so much of its aroma that you can do without drying right away. Freezing fresh chervil is a better solution.
The varieties of chervil
The chervil or anthriscus forms its own genus within the umbelliferous plant family. There are between 9 and 15 species of chervil, which has not yet been researched so precisely, which have spread widely throughout Europe, Asia and Africa. These chervil species are of interest to gardeners:
1. The real chervil is called Anthriscus cerefolium, and it is also available in the wild. Our garden chervil comes from this wild form. However, this is a cultivated form of the real chervil, which was specifically bred for use as a spice (selection after the formation of essential oils = aroma development, fruit is slightly regressed).
This form of culture is called Anthriscus cerefolium var. Cerefolium. Of course, you usually save the second cerefolium (if the botanical name is given at all). The wild form Anthriscus cerefolium var. Trichocarpa is not traded anyway and can only be found in the wild.
2. The meadow parsley Anthriscus sylvestris grows frequently and widely throughout Central Europe, from the valleys to the tree line of the Alps. It likes to show itself in sunny and partially shaded locations in fresh, nutrient-rich soils. The half-rosette plant with root beet is a nitrogen pointer and therefore very often colonizes over-fertilized meadows. The spreading of liquid manure promotes the settlement of meadow parsley.
There it can endanger biodiversity if it can gain the upper hand due to continued overfertilization. Its nectar-bearing disc flowers also feed a large number of flower visitors, especially a wide variety of beetles. It is also quite decorative: Immediately after the lilac blooms in May / June, the magnificent umbel blossoms, the roadside and the wayside appear in a white veil.
The meadow chervil is also edible. Leaves and roots can be eaten as vegetables. It can also be added as an interesting condiment to salads, herbal quarks and soups. It tastes much more bitter than the real chervil and also has a light carrot aroma, which is really interesting.
Meadow chervil is also rather short-lived, but it sows heavily. So it is definitely an alternative in the garden for gourmets who are keen to experiment and who want to green large previously over-fertilized areas and bring them back to balanced nutrient values.
There are other chervil plants that grow in our country, dog chervil (Anthriscus caucalis, inhabits fallow land) and gloss chervil (Anthriscus nitidus, common wild plant), which are less suitable for a settlement in the garden.
Diseases and pests
On the one hand, it’s good that the chervil likes to stand alone. Because its leaves are often attacked by downy mildew or rust fungus if they are moist for a long time. The chervil is also a popular host plant for some aphid species, the chervil moth and the carrot fly. The caterpillars of several species of butterflies also find it very tasty.
This means you shouldn’t necessarily grow chervil near carrots or cabbage. These pests or diseases would also endanger them. With an otherwise healthy garden soil, however, it is best to simply overlook the losses in the chervil itself.
On the other hand, chervil is also a good companion for many plants as it repels various lice and powdery mildew. Snails also seem to like the essential oils. On the Internet and on many seed bags you can read that chervil is also supposed to drive ants away, but many garden owners report that their (unfamiliar) ants find their chervil delicious.
Chervil as a garden designer
Garden chervil already smells in the bed, so you can plant it well where people often pass by.
In addition, the garden parsley, like the field chervil, is one of the plants that develop flower umbels (more precisely, even flowers in double umbels), and these umbellifers are usually plants of great beauty, the flowers of which exude an exquisite fragrance.
So you could sow your garden chervil in places suitable for eye-catching, where some chervil plants are allowed to grow until they bloom. These umbels are allowed to stand over the winter, they also look beautiful when covered with frost and snow. And you don’t have to grow chervil for the next year. It comes by itself because it sown itself last season.
use
Chervil shines first and foremost in the kitchen. B. An indispensable component of the famous French “Fines Herbes” (fine herbs), which in the basic version consist of chives, chervil, parsley and tarragon. In France, Fines Herbes belong to every herb quark and omelette. They can be used to refine many sauces and soups, as well as white meat and fish dishes.
Since chervil is one of the first harvestable plants of the year, it is a traditional seasoning for spring dishes in many European countries, e.g. B. the “Frankfurt Green Sauce”. But he also likes to refine everyday home cooking, and with success: try z. B. scrambled eggs, the herb butter for pan-fried or cheese spaetzle with chervil.
Conclusion
Growing chervil is easy. It is an absolute asset in the herb garden and in the kitchen, which does not require a lot of work. Garden chervil or field chervil can also beautify your garden and cover it with scent, you just have to let some of the imposing flower umbels grow.