"David Hare-Scott" wrote in message
...
0tterbot wrote:
i have parsley (both curly & italian) which self-seeds about the
place (i'm too lazy to grow it in an organised manner, and also i
find it really hard to germinate whereas it germinates wonderfully if
just left to do its thing).


I do the same. Except when a WWOOFer weeded all the seedlings :-(

it's enough to make you turn nationalist...! g

lately i have noticed that the curly parsley has almost entirely lost
its curl and is paler than it used to be! it doesn't quite look like
italian parsley, but it's really not tightly curly & dark like it
should be. it looks like a small version of italian.


How does it taste?

er, like parsley, really!
but i must say it doesn't seem as strong-tasting as curly would be. a really
curly curly can be powerful stuff! (but mine's not). tbh i'm not fussed
really, i think i prefer italian anyway.


do we think it is:
1: cross pollination (i don't recall them ever flowering
simultaneously, but who knows)

My guess is that is quite possible.

2: just the current curlies growing a bit straighter because of some
sort of weather thing & next time round they'll be curly again.

Can't rule it out

3: lack of selection on my part ( i just let all of them go to seed,
good or bad, as a general rule) so it's reverting to some sort of
ancestral type (??? i have no idea if this is even likely).

Seem unlikely to me as I don't think parsley is highly selected and
conserved seed

4: a weird side effect of the occasional razing by (presumably)
rabbits

Why would cropping by rabbits do anything that cropping by cooks doesn't?

well, rabbits leave a small pile of stumps without a leaf to be seen,
whereas i don't take much from any one plant (seeing as how there are so
many plants) so i thought this might be possible.

any thoughts?
kylie
p.s. i used to live across the street from someone whose curly
parsley was knee-high & fabulously lush. wow! my parsley never looks
like that even if it's not gone straight.

L iberal nitrogen fertiliser and water.

hmm, all right. i give it a dash of seasol now & then. one thing i've
noticed is it seems to love growing in poor areas :-) albeit small & slowly,
but my thinking is that if i have sufficient quantity, then quality doesn't
matter quite so much. those which have grown in better areas get much
bigger, yet there are fewer of them! (it's all quite fascinating to me,
really).

after i posted, i looked everywhere for a really curly one like they used to
be, but couldn't find a one!
thanks for thoughts.
\kylie