How to grow chervils

Chervil is a cool-season annual herb with light green, finely divided leaves that closely resemble parsley but carry a mild, anise-inflected flavor. The plant reaches about 2 feet tall, with ferny foliage that adds delicate texture to an herb row or container. It occupies the same growing window as lettuces and radishes, performing best in the shoulder seasons of spring and fall, and pairs naturally with those crops in the bed. Home gardeners grow it primarily for the leaf harvest, used fresh in soups, salads, sauces, and egg dishes, with leaves at their best quality before any flower stems emerge.

The hardest part of growing chervil is managing its tendency to bolt quickly when temperatures rise. A gardener who makes a single spring sowing and expects leaves through summer will watch the crop flower and the leaves turn bitter before the warmest weeks arrive. The concrete solution is succession sowing: Illinois Extension recommends new sowings at three-to-four-week intervals to maintain a continuous supply of young, harvestable leaves. Compounding the difficulty, chervil seedlings transplant poorly, meaning each succession must be direct-sown in place, with no transplant option available to recover a missed sowing.