Atika Root parsley
Price range: $4.00 through $8.00
(Petroselinum crispum)
Long white roots give you the flavour of parsley on those mid-winter nights when it’s too snowy to harvest the leaves. We acquired this variety from Real Seeds in the UK, who describe it as a modern variety from the Czech Republic/Czechia selected for disease resistance, earliness, and rapid growth even in wet soils. Apparently the Czechs eat 100,000 tons of root parsley per year! In Canada, a delightful and underappreciated root crop.
The leaves are of course also edible, but tend to be a bit bitterer and tougher than varieties which have been selected for their leaves. So we grow a proper leaf parsley for above-ground eating.
Biennial. Plant May-July. Sow 1/4” deep, 1/4” apart in rows 16” apart; thin to 4”. Keep watered or cover seedbed with mulch until seedlings emerge; topdress with a little compost. Harvest roots after hard frost.
For a seed crop, leave roots in the ground to go to seed in their second year, and cover them with thick evergreen branches or old hay to protect for the winter.