Growing Chervil: A Complete Profile
By Growing Home Greens Team · August 10, 2026
Chervil is one of the classic French fines herbes, a delicate, anise-and-parsley-flavored annual that fades fast once cut or cooked, which is why it’s almost always added at the very end of a dish rather than during cooking.
Sowing it for cool weather
Direct-sow in early spring, or about 60 days before your first fall frost for an autumn crop, since chervil is a cool-season herb that bolts quickly once summer heat arrives. It can also be started indoors about 8 weeks before your last frost. Seed needs light to germinate, so barely cover it rather than burying it; germination takes 10 to 14 days. Space plants 6 inches apart in rows at least 12 inches apart.
Harvest before it flowers
Cut leaves just before the plant starts to flower, when the anise flavor is at its peak. Once chervil bolts, the leaves turn bitter fast, so in a hot spring, plan to harvest earlier and more aggressively than you would with a slower-bolting herb like parsley.
Delicate flavor, delicate handling
Chervil’s flavor fades quickly with heat and time, which is why it’s traditionally added at the end of cooking rather than during it, and used fresh rather than dried whenever possible. It pairs classically with fish, eggs, and other mild dishes where a stronger herb would overwhelm it.
Chervil has no well-established companion pairings, and nothing it needs to be kept away from. At 4 plants per square foot, it fits the Garden Designer’s grid the same way parsley does, best planted as a spring or fall crop rather than fought through summer heat.
Source: Chervil: Key Growing Information, Johnny’s Selected Seeds.
Companion planting guide for Chervil · Find your planting dates
Typically viable in USDA zones 2-10. Not sure your zone? Look it up by ZIP code.
Mature height: 1-1.5 ft
Method: Either: Start indoors for an earlier harvest, or direct-sow outside for less fuss. Either works.
When to plant chervil, by zone
Every zone chervil grows in. Pick your zone in the header and it will be highlighted here. Each zone links to its full page.
| Zone | Start indoors | Sow or plant out | Harvest |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2a & 2b | Mar 25–Apr 1 | May 6–May 13 | Jul 5–Jul 12 |
| 3a & 3b | Apr 4–Apr 11 | May 16–May 23 | Jul 15–Jul 22 |
| 4a & 4b | Mar 20–Mar 27 | May 1–May 8 | Jun 30–Jul 7 |
| 5a & 5b | Mar 15–Mar 22 | Apr 26–May 3 | Jun 25–Jul 2 |
| 6a & 6b | Feb 28–Mar 7 | Apr 11–Apr 18 | Jun 10–Jun 17 |
| 7a & 7b | Feb 13–Feb 20 | Mar 27–Apr 3 | May 26–Jun 2 |
| 8a & 8b | Jan 28–Feb 4 | Mar 11–Mar 18 | May 10–May 17 |
| 9a & 9b | Dec 21–Dec 28 | Feb 1–Feb 8 | Apr 2–Apr 9 |
| 10a & 10b | Dec 5–Dec 12 | Jan 16–Jan 23 | Mar 17–Mar 24 |
Harvest dates are about 60 days after the sow or plant-out date, not after starting seeds indoors.
Zone 2 sows before zone 3 here, which looks wrong and is not. USDA zones rank winter cold, not season length, and zone 2 is mostly interior Alaska, where hard winters come with warm summers. More on what a zone measures.
See exact start-indoors, direct-sow, and harvest dates for your zone →
How many Chervil plants fit per square foot?
Spacing: 4 per square foot (square-foot-gardening spacing). Mature height: 1-1.5 ft.
Varieties worth considering
- 'Vertissimo' chervil (best for: cold tolerance, winter sowing): Johnny's Selected Seeds describes this as a Brussels Winter type with dark green leaves, bred for better cold tolerance than the standard curled type. (source)
- 'Fine Curled' chervil (best for: standard curled type): Johnny's Selected Seeds' organic offering, similar to Vertissimo but the standard curled-leaf type most seed packets sell, with the lacy, fern-like leaves chervil is known for. (source) Buy seeds: True Leaf Market · Burpee
Why each variety is listed comes from the source shown next to it. We haven't grown these ourselves yet, so treat this as a research-backed starting point, not a personal endorsement. The buy links are separate from those sources: they go to seed suppliers that sell that exact variety, and we may earn a commission on some of them.
Where to buy chervil seeds
Botanical Interests · True Leaf Market · Burpee · High Mowing Organic Seeds (each supplier's chervil seeds)
The varieties we recommend above each have their own buy links, for the suppliers that sell that exact variety.
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See it growing
Search YouTube for "growing chervil" videos → (a live search, not a hand-picked video; results vary and aren't vetted by us)
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Growing Chervil: A delicate, anise-flavored French parsley relative that bolts fast in heat and is best treated as a spring or fall crop, not a summer one.
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