Chervil

Sow chervil straight into the ground or into its final pot as soon as the soil can be worked. Cover the seed very lightly or not at all, and keep the surface damp by misting or by laying a single sheet of newspaper over the row until seedlings appear. Do not start it in flats to move later. Chervil seed needs light to germinate well, so burying it is the usual reason a sowing fails. The seedlings also resent root disturbance and transplant poorly, so the plant you keep is the one that comes up where you sowed it.

Once the seedlings are up and handling themselves, thin them to stand about 15 inches apart. Snip the extras at soil level rather than pulling them, and eat the thinnings. Chervil makes a plant 12 to 18 inches wide, so a stand thinned to about 15 inches apart gives each plant its room without crowding. Snipping instead of pulling spares the roots of the seedlings you are keeping, which do not recover from disturbance.

Walk the row early in the morning while the plants are small and hand-pick any snails and slugs you find. If aphids show up on the foliage, knock them off with a spray of water from the hose. Slugs are the main thing that eats chervil, and the cool damp conditions the herb wants are exactly the conditions they thrive in. Seedlings are the vulnerable stage, since a slug can take out a plant you cannot replace by transplanting.

Put in a short new row of chervil every three to four weeks through the season rather than relying on the spring planting. Sow each round the same way, on the surface with the seed barely covered. Chervil runs to flower readily once the days lengthen and warm, and a bolted plant does not come back as leaf. Succession sowing is the only reliable way to have tender leaves in hand all season, because you are always harvesting from a planting that has not yet turned.

Water chervil consistently so the soil never dries out, and site the summer sowings in full sun to partial shade, favoring partial shade through the heat of summer. Warm weather sends chervil to seed, and without consistent water it bolts and goes to seed as well. Steady moisture and part shade in summer keep it in the cool, unstressed state where it stays leafy.

Harvest leaves when they are fully open but still tender, taking a little at a time from around the outside so the center keeps growing. Once flower stalks start to rise, cut what you want and move on to the next sowing. Use chervil fresh and add it at the end of cooking. Chervil goes to flower readily, and once a planting bolts it stops giving you the tender leaf you grow it for, which is why the next sowing carries the harvest. The aromatic oil that carries the anise note is volatile and disappears when cooked, so add chervil to hot food just before serving rather than cooking it in.

Make a sowing in fall as the heat breaks. Seed sown in late fall will sit and germinate on its own the following spring, so leave the row alone over winter rather than reworking it. Chervil is at its best in cool weather, so autumn gives it the conditions spring plantings lose to summer. Late sowings that do not come up have not failed, they are waiting out the cold and will break dormancy when the soil warms.