Amazing Facts About Parsley

Planted in your garden, parsley attracts predatory insects that will eat many pests that would otherwise target the rest of your plants.

Companion planting is the ancient technique of planting different crops in close proximity that can provide benefits to each other. For example, the famous three sisters planting widely used by native people across North America involved planting beans to fix nitrogen in the soil, corn for the beans to climb, and squash to shade the ground. 

 

In a garden, parsley excels at repelling harmful insects and attracting beneficial ones. Beetles dislike parsley leaves and will avoid it, an effect that can be extended by sprinkling nearby crops with parsley leaves or a tea brewed from them. If you let your parsley flower go to seed, it will attract predatory wasps and hoverflies that will kill caterpillars and other garden predators. Tomatoes in particular like being planted near parsley, as the herb attracts wasps that kill the tomato hornworm. Parsley planted near rose bushes will actually make your roses more fragrant.

 

One caution, though: don’t plant mint and parsley close together, or neither plant will thrive.