Last edited by CloCkWeRX on November 11, 2026. View history
Lovage
How to sow lovage: Direct seed (indoors in early spring, outdoors in late spring or fall)
Sun requirement for lovage: Plant in Full Sun
Lovage is a perennial herb that tastes like an intensified cross between celery and parsley with a hint of anise. A member of Apiaceae family, it is related to carrots and celery. The leaves, roots, and young stems are edible. Leaves and hollow, thick stems can be added to salads, soups, and poultry dishes. The seeds can be used as a spice similar to fennel seeds. Lovage is also used as a companion crop because it's flowers attract beneficial insects like bees, hoverflies, lacewing larva, lady beetles, and parasitic wasps. Leaves can be harvested the first year, whole stems the second year.
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Lovage facts
Lifespan
Height × spread
180cm × 80cmRow Spacing
60cmCrop cycle
Optimal light
What are growing degree days?
A plant grows with warmth, not with days. A growing degree day is one day's worth of useful warmth: how many degrees the day's average temperature is above the lowest temperature the crop grows at. Add them up from planting and you know how far along the crop is, whatever the calendar says.
Say that lowest temperature is 10°C. A day averaging 17°C gives 7 growing degree days. A day averaging 8°C gives none, as it is too cold for the crop to grow. That is why the same lettuce takes about 50 days in a summer and 90 in an autumn: it needs the same total warmth either way.
For lovage, the FAO EcoCrop database gives a lowest growing temperature of 6°C and a shortest growing cycle of 140 days at its best temperature, about 1260 growing degree days to a first harvest.
Where you've told us where your garden is, we use this and the weather there to predict when your lovage will be ready to harvest. We don't use it for how long a plant lives or when it finishes: we go by what members have logged for that.
How members grow lovage
Sunniness
Photos
Photos
Lovage crops
Video
Where lovage grow
Only plantings by members who have set their locations are shown.
What people are saying about lovage
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Who's planted lovage
- piranha Front Garden · East Coast, Central...
piranha
Lovage harvests
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Time to harvest
If sown now, expect a first harvest in about 140 to 160 days.
From the growing cycle in the FAO EcoCrop database, which is the same wherever it is grown.
Ecological requirements
Data from the FAO EcoCrop database for Levisticum officinale Koch
| Family / Taxonomy | Magnoliopsida Rosidae Apiales Umbelliferae |
|---|---|
| Killing temperature | growth: 0 °C, rest: -10 °C |
| Life form | herb |
| Life span | perennial |
| Habit | erect |
| Optimal soil depth | medium (50-150 cm) |
| Optimal soil texture | medium, organic |
| Optimal soil fertility | high |
| Optimal soil drainage | well (dry spells) |
| Optimal soil salinity | low (<4 dS/m) |
| Photoperiod | long day (>14 hours) |
Learn more about lovage
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