Leaf celery (Apium graveolens), or herb celery, is far easier to grow than regular celery and provides an abundance of leafy growth with the same flavour. I think of it as cut and come again celery. An early spring and mid summer sowing should give you leaves all year round in Ireland as they are very winter hardy.
Sprinkle a pinch of the tiny seeds on a tray filled with fine seed compost. Don’t bother cover them up as they need light to germinate. They will germinate over a few weeks. When big enough, prick them out into pots to grow on before planting out. Being close to their wild relative, they are unfussy and will be happy anywhere sunny and reasonably fertile.
Herb fennel, or sweet fennel, is grown for its fine leaves and seeds. It is grown as an annual for food but usually survives over winter and produces flowers and seeds the following year. Fennel flowers are beloved by insects such as hoverflies, potter wasps, bees and lacewings. An ancient crop, fennel is thought to have been consumed 5,000 years ago in Mesopotamia. Foeniculum vulgare var. dulce
A strong growing long stemmed curly parsley (Petroselinum crispum). Parsley is a biennial plant and in all but the harshest winters can be available all year round in an Irish garden. If you want to be sure you can sow some in a tunnel. Sow seeds in early spring and again during summer to keep a succession.
