How to Grow Chervil:  Chervil is also sometimes called a garden chervil is in many ways similar to French parsley and is a delicate annual herb that will have to be replanted each season to ensure that it is continually growing in your garden. Chervil is a relative of the parsley family. It is commonly used as a mild flavoring for common, favorite dishes and is a constituent of the French herb mixture fines herbes.

The chervil is a member of the native to the Caucasus family and was spread by the Romans throughout most of Europe in a fairly rapid fashion back in ancient times.

Chervil goes the best with and is used in France to couple with poultry, seafood, and young spring vegetables to add more flavor to the everyday foods and dishes people are eating.

Seed Sowing Depth: Chervil seeds, just like parsley seeds, will need to be soaked in warm water overnight before being planted for the best results. The seeds should be planted at about 1/4" inch of depth and with about 10 to 12 inches between each seed to allow adequate room for the plant to spread out as it grows. Later, thin the plants down to being spread about 6 inches apart after they mature and begin to grow.

When to Sow: Chervil is best when sown either in the spring or the fall. Chervil should be planted every 2-3 weeks throughout the fall or spring growing season based on when you begin planting the crop. This will help you have a consistent supply of chervil to harvest throughout the entire summer and the harvesting season. As you eat one batch of the chervil more will grow so you never run out of the foods you love from your home garden!

Sowing Indoors/Outdoors: Growing the chervil inside works great as it does not take well to the extreme heat that can be present outdoors during the height of the summertime. When growing chervil outside be sure to plant it when the temperatures are cool and in partial shade so they sun doesn't overbear and kill the plant. Planting chervil indoors makes the best use of indoor space for the plant and allows it to flourish and grow year around rather than just in the few months that are the spring and the fall.

Leaves Description & Color: Chervil looks very similar to parsley with flat, green leaves yet chervil has a more mild taste to it and tastes like parsley more than anything else. Others think the mild taste makes it taste like basil more than parsley. Either way, it provides a great additional taste to a dish you are cooking.

Chervil's tendency, however, tends to have it evaporate in a lot of dishes rather than standing out to flavor the dish. Chervil is also part of the same family as other spices and garnishes like dill, parsley, fennel, and carrots to name a few other plants and foods in a similar category.

Growth Habits: Chervil is a hardy annual-growing plant, which means that it's a hearty growing plant like a carrot or parsley. It grows much like parsley with bright green leaves which are cut along the edges. This gives the chervil a delicate, trimmed look.

General Info on Chervil & Its Uses: Chervil tastes mostly like a faint taste of parsley, yet also has a faint taste of other flavors like liquorice and aniseed. The four main exquisite French herbs include tarragon, chives, parsley, and the fourth is the chervil. Chervil along with these other French herbs are essential to the flavors you find in French cuisine.

In replacement of chervil you can also use up to 1/4 teaspoon of crushed bay leaf or thyme to give you similar ideas to what chervil will taste like if you grow it in your garden. It will supply a powerful herbal taste similar to that of any of the alternatives listed above, depending on the stage of growth it is at when you harvest it will determine what flavor the herb gives the food that you make.

Pests & Diseases: Chervil is susceptible to several different pests and diseases including things like aphids, slugs, being eaten by deer, and interruptions from other small animals such as groundhogs and rabbits as well. Whether it's being eaten by the animals or infected by pests, these are common problems that will plague chervil and ruin it's viability to be able to grow to maturity so it can be harvested and grown into fully mature plants.

Harvesting & Storage Information: Learning to harvest chervil is similar to harvesting parsley and it is vital to harvesting it right to preserve the taste and consistency of the chervil till it is going to be used to cook in recipe. chervil is able to be harvested when its about 4 inches high and that will occur about 6 to 8 weeks after the plant is planted. The plant does best in cool weather in the spring or fall, but the summer weather that is warmer can cause the plants to flower and grow willy-nilly wherever they please making hard to determine where the plant will grow next and making it hard to determine how to grow the plant and keep its growth in control. As the plants grow for too long in warm weather the leaves will noticeably begin to wither and lose their taste.

When storing chervil be sure to wrap the leaves in damp paper towels and keep the plant in Ziploc bags in the refrigerator to help the leaves last long as possible before they go bad. Chervil will last several days to a couple of weeks (2 weeks) when washed, dried, and wrapped in paper towels and stored in Ziploc baggies to keep the leaves fresh and crisp as possible for long as possible.

Edible Uses & Flavors: The chervil plant tastes like parsley or mild basil and the flavor tendency tends to evaporate under many different cooking conditions. It comes from the same family as many other plants including carrots, fennel, dill, and parsley to name

Chervil looks similar to many other plants including parsley. In addition to flavoring dishes, chervil can also be finely chopped and added to vinaigrette to make flavorful dressings and other toppings for foods like salads and the like. 

Chervil looks similar to many other plants including parsley. In addition to flavoring dishes, chervil can also be finely chopped and added to vinaigrette to make flavorful dressings and other toppings for foods like salads and the like. The delicate and bitter flavor adds a great pizazz to a variety of homemade dishes that will strike people's fancy throughout various divisions of American cuisine. Chervil can also be baked into other things like egg dishes or steamed vegetables, fish, and grilled meats to name a few other options for use for this herb.

Be sure to ensure that the dishes you are using chervil in do not overpower the ingredient so that it does not disappear into not tasting like anything. Balance the power of the chervil with the dishes you are cooking it in for the best results and for the best flavors to be released from the product without losin the flavor in too powerful of a dish.