Is celery hard to grow?

[Patchninja]

I've done a search, but didn't find the answer to my question.
I've never grown it before and the stuff in the shops here is all green and nasty - I have wonderful childhood memories of creamy, delicious celery sticks that my Mum used to keep in a jug of water. I'd love to be able to grow some.
Can anyone give me some pointers as to how to and varieties, please? And what to beware of. I found a thread about creepy crawlies.....

[Capsid]

I've never been able to reproduce the supermarket quality. Mine are quite stringy and have lots of blemishes. IMO, they take a lot of effort and I don't bother any more.

[Paulottie]

Yes!...well, difficult for me ...high imput of effort and ended up with slug nibbled mess..maybe try nematodes?

Getting the hang of decent sized celeriac now though....prefer them anyway.

[Two_Sheds]

I can't grow it either: I just got bunches of string

Zazen grows it well: I think she keeps them permanently in a tray of water

[taff]

grow it in fertile soil, lots of compost/poo/feed, then keep it moist, water it a lot, then water it a bit more, then keep watering it.
You can get self-banching varieities, most of the garden centers sell this one, plant in a block [helps exclude the light more ] and either plant deep and earth up as it grows to blanch, or exclude the light above ground. I use very big, very thick cardboard rolls, they're the innards of rolls of film, instead of wrapping in paper or similar.
I get a lot of leaf miner, and some slug damage, but not excessive.

[arpoet]

We do plant and vegs swaps down our lotties and i swapped some ready grown turnips for young Celery plants.. They never hearted up or produced owt but thin stringy floppy sticks.. but they were great all chopped up into stews to add flavour.
roger

[Tomatoking]

I tried last year to grow some for the first time. I grew it from seed.
I had quite a good crop considering not long after they were planted we had a very long dry spell. I watered them as much as I could until the water butts ran dry. They were luckily not too stringy for salads, and a lot were used to make tasty soup. There were only ruined by the first lot of snow that we had.
I had dug in a fair amount of compost before planting, and although they were self blanching I did heap up as much soil around them as I could, which left a nice channel between the rows that I used to fill will water and let it soak down.

I did work on a nursery many year ago where we had fields on them and supplied super markets. However this was up north in the UK where we had plenty of rain. So if you have a good constant supply of water in the summer you could do OK. the secret might be to try just a few small rows, which you can manage to water OK.

The variety were from Unwins seeds, Lathom self blanching galaxy, they were sown on the 2oth March.

Mr TK

[binley100]

Mine got chopped up and frozen for use in soups, stews etc,. I think I was a bit late in getting them going and they should've been bigger when planted out. Keep your eyes open for signs of leaf miner and pick off any leaves that start to go brown.......

[brad1001]

ive tried twice to grow celery and twice they ended up a stringy mess.they were well watered and feed but came to nothing in the end.
my wifes grandad used to grow loads of it up his allotment,it was amazing what he grew.
unfortunatley hes not here anymore or i would of asked his secret!

[brad1001]

can celery be grown in large pots?

[Tomatoking]

can celery be grown in large pots?

I dont know for sure, but I would imagine if you had the pot stood in a good tray of water it could help. However you would have to make sure the water was refreshed every so often. Worth a try!

[brad1001]

i think ill have another go this year in a couple of pots.ive just had a look in my seed tin and theres half a pack still in there.not to sure how long ive had them though..still,worth a try

[Patchninja]

Thanks for all the replies. I was wondering because I got the HUGE seed catalogue yesterday and was um-ing and ah-ing over all that there is to order (Graines Baumaux for you french grapes) and read in the Veg Expert that celery was difficult. I'll give it a try. I like the idea of growing it in pots as I do SFG and earthing up woule be difficult. You're all brill!

[Alison]

OH wants me to try celery this year - I've bought some seeds but to be honest don't hold out much hope as it's supposed to be difficult and as I don't really like it I won't be motivated to make much effort. Will have to put him in charge of watering.

[scarletrunner]

Last grew celery about 35 years ago,gave plenty of water and feed and crop looked good but was as tough as old boots.Intend to try again this year!