Growing Parsley Indoors - The Kitchen Herbs

Fresh parsley is a beautiful plant to grow in the kitchen, but it can be tricky to get it to thrive. It needs lots of sunlight, and moist soil, but it doesn’t like being over-watered. However, the convenience of having fresh parsley to hand is worth the little effort it takes to grow.

Choose the right pot

When growing parsley in pots, it is important to choose the right container. Parsley has a long tap root and needs a deep pot to thrive. Choose one at least 6 inches deep.

You will also need a pot with drainage holes in the bottom, and a saucer or outer pot to catch any drainage water.

Growing indoors from seed

Fill the pot with well-draining potting mix, the plant the seeds around ¼ inch deep and around 1/2 inch apart.

Keep the soil consistently moist (be careful not to over water) until the seeds germinate. This should take about 4 weeks. You can speed up the germination rate by soaking the seeds overnight before planting.

When your plants are a few inches tall, thin out the parsley seedlings, so you have 3 or 4 strong ones in the pot. Use scissors to snip off the stems of the unwanted seedlings at the soil surface.

Growing an existing plant indoors

Seedlings

If you have purchased seedlings or a young plant from a garden center, carefully transplant it into the pot you want to grow it in. Try not to disturb the roots too much as the tap root is delicate.

Growing parsley from the grocery store

Parsley from the grocery store can be difficult to grow at home. This is because it has been cultivated to be used rather than grown, and when it is potted up for the store the long roots are often removed. This means that it will live for a short time, but may not survive for the long-term.

To give your grocery store parsley the best chance of survival, repot it into a deep pot filled with rich potting soil, as soon as possible. This will give the root system a chance to regrow if enough of it is remaining.

Positioning your parsley plant

Light

Parsley does well when it gets a lot of light, so the best place to grow it indoors in a sunny window sill.

It will need around 6 hours of direct sunlight per day to thrive, so consider supplementing this with a grow light if needed if you don’t have a bright spot where it will get this much naturally.

Temperature

Being a Mediterranean herb, parsley prefers warm conditions. A warm indoor location such as a sunny windowsill should provide sufficient warmth.

Parsley will tolerate a light frost, but if you live in a very cold climate then you may need to move the parsley plant from the windowsill at night to protect it from overnight temperature drops.

Humidity

Parsley plants prefer a humid environment. If you are growing your parsley plant in your kitchen, then the humidity will often be sufficient for it. However, if it is in a drier part of your house, then it may need to be misted regularly to keep its leaves moist.

Check the condition of the leaves and if they start to look dry at the edges then try misting them (rather than increasing watering).

Indoor parsley care

Watering

Parsley grows really well indoors, as long as it gets sufficient water. Unfortunately, it is also susceptible to root rot, so care must be taken to not overwater it.

Successfully growing parsley indoors is often a matter of finding the right balance of watering – not too little, not too much – to keep the soil moist at all times.

To find the right balance, water your indoor parsley plant frequently enough to ensure moist soil that does not dry out completely between waterings.

Then, check that the soil has not become waterlogged following watering. To do this, allow the water to filter through the soil for around 5 minutes, and then discard any water that has collected in the pot saucer or outer pot.

If at any time the leaves start to look yellow that is a sign that the plant is under water stress (either too much or not enough). Check to see if the soil has become water-logged, or has dried out, and adjust your watering schedule to ensure that the soil stays evenly moist at all times.

Feeding

Parsley requires feeding regularly during its growing phase. Use a good quality water-soluble fertilizer during watering every two weeks.

Liquid fertilizer is the best type to use as you can just add it to the water when you are watering your plants.

Harvesting parsley

Once your parsley plant has developed true leaves (rather than the soft seedling leaves), then you can start to harvest it.

It is however best to wait until you have at least 10 true leaves before you start harvesting, to ensure that the plant is strong enough to survive having leaves removed.

Harvest parsley leaves as needed, taking leaves from the outside of the plant, and ensure you don’t harvest more than half the plant at any one time. See this post for full details on how to harvest parsley.

Storing parsley

The benefit of growing parsley indoors is that you can just harvest a little, as and when you need it.

However, if you do cut too much, or if your plants needs a little pruning, fresh cut parsley leaves can be stored in a glass of water (just like fresh cut flowers), or you can store it in the refrigerator between two moist paper towels. See how to store fresh parsley for more.