How do you grow celery?

[windowsillqueen]

My husband adores celery with roast beef. I was just checking we had some for Sunday dinner tomorrow and it struck me - I could grow the stuff myself!! Then it struck me that I had absolutely no idea how to grow it.

Does it grow from seed? What type of soil? When do you plant? How much food and water? How long does it take? Will it cope with a total idiot like me in charge?....

*Sigh* So many vegetables, so many questions.

[Nicos]

I tried once...and wasn't worth the bother for me ..but then again I'm not a celery addict!!!

I grew mine from seed. I think I went wrong because I didn't carefully choose the variety- it was very stringy. Plus the heavy clay soil hadn't been well manured or cared for for a long time- as it was our first year on a lottie.
Mine came up green cos it wasn't a variety which tends to stay whiteish, and I couldn't be bothered with fussing about with bits of paper
Waste of time for me...although the gal a few plots down from ours grows about 50 every year and she says it's really easy!!!....so maybe it depends on getting the right variety, and soil condition....and an enthusiasm for the veg!

I did find this...
Growing Celery -A Most Difficult Vegetable, National Vegetable Society

and then I spotted this!!..

BBC - Gardening - Basics - Growing celery

go for it....it's probably as easy as my neighbour says..esp if you can buy small plants!!!

good luck!!!

[blackkitty]

I chucked the last few bits of a celery bunch into the bean trench I've started and its rooted and is growing very well. I think I'll transplant it before I earth over the trench and see if it does anything worthwhile.

[poly]

I've grown the self-blanching type, started off inside in modules and then planted out when big enough into a block shape. Seems to do well enough and produce a worthwhile crop although it can be a bit stringy! and slugs love it.

Just a thought Celeriac, is pretty easy to grow from seed (or some of the garden centres do them as plug plants, celery too). Your hubby might like roasted celeriac or mashed instead with his beef.

[Capsid]

I've tried a couple of times and always been disappointed. It gets damaged and turns stringy. I've turned to celeriac instead.

[SarzWix]

I've never grown it before, but I'm giving it a go this year. I've just sprinkled some seeds over a seed tray and if any come up I'll put them into little cell trays. If the seed sown ones fail miserably I'll buy some plug plants from the GC

[Alice]

Celery needs special conditions Windowsill Queen and can be a bit of a fiddle faddle but if you really love the flavour Herb Celery would grow in a pot on the windowsill or in a small area outside. It only grows about 8" high and you can use it as cut and come again. You can buy the seeds from Thomson and Morgan.
I'm growing it for the first time this year and it looks as if it's doing allright.

[pjh75]

How do you grow celery?

With great difficulty... first time trying and can't even get it to germinate - I don't even like it that much but thought that if I grew my own it might taste different.

[markwcel]

we bought plugs last year and they grew very well...takes a lot space up tho but worth it

[zazen999]

There was a thread on this a few weeks back which inspired me to try again

First pot of seeds are up and about 3/4 inch tall...and I've sown the second batch in modules.

They need loads of water to prevent them getting stringy, and to be planted in a grid to keep themselves blanched. Add loo roll inners to try and blanch them even more. Then, once you've watered, water again and again and again...ad infinitum.

[Mi Jardín]

I'm sure I read something the other day about how if you put the bottom couple of inches of the celery into water, it will start putting out shoots. Might be worth googling!

[msflocks]

well im trying for the first timethis year, I nearly had a scrap with celery seeds! theyre so small and i pulled the packet open, all down my top! found a few and little shoots have just come up! i hope to be successful, my 4year old likes celery!
ZF

[Hazel at the Hill]

How do you grow celery?

Quite badly, as it happens.

Shirlthegirl43 sent me some seed 2 years ago with the note 'these seed are like dust!', and she was not wrong.

They grew to seedling size (ickle wickle poppet moppet seedlings) which drive you bananas to prick out, and I ended up with about 9 planted out celery plants.

They grew well enough at the Hill (i.e. they looked like celery) but quite green and dwarf. I do confess to ignoring them.

When cropped they were green, tough, short and stringy. Not good enough for eating, so I made celery wine.

This was also pretty vile, however it has made it to fame on national tv, whereas I have not, so perhaps being green, tough, short and stringy is not necessarily a disadvantage in life.

[Eyren]

Personally I don't bother with celery, as we don't like it much (to the point where I asked for celery to be added to our 'no thanks' list for the organic veg box we get!).

I grow celeriac, for soup and mash (much lower in calories than spuds, so great for the waistline!), and this year I'm going to try growing lovage, which is a tall celery-flavoured perennial herb, for flavouring stock, etc.

[zazen999]

I'm slowly developing a plan for my celery, I won't be planting it out until it is at least a couple of inches tall, and it is staying in a pot with a full saucer of water until then.


I'm going to build a box round it, so that I can earth it up [even though it is self blanching], as it grows. I'm also going to put piping with some holes in it to get the water right inbetween the plants.

It really needs lots and lots of water, so always taking a can of water down to the garden just for the celery, every day - bar none - will help.

I'll report back on findings.