Sowing and growing Celery

[rary]

I have never grown celery from seeds, in the past I have bought young plants, but I would like to try growing them from seed next year, I know the seed packets give dates for sowing etc. but could anyone tell me from personal experience the best time to sow them and how long it takes from sowing to harvesting, and what is the best variety to grow, should I go for self blanching or not

[MarkHackwell]

I have been able to germinate celery in the Greenhouse before (the trench variety) but have failed in being able to keep it going past the first stage of growth as of yet! They are very small seeds and if like me you were to grow the trench celery then it requires it be started quite early and is apparently harder to grow than that of the self blanching. You say you have grown it from
Plants before, I'm taking it they were self blanching?

The difference between the two I believe is:

Trench - They are able to withstand the colder weather better so you can get celery into November possibly longer

Self Blanching - They tend to not be any good after the first frosts.

But as I said above the trench celery is much more difficult to grow and is more suited to exhibition growing.

[burnie]

I grew self blanching once and found it very disappointing taste wise, kids rabbits and guinea pigs liked it though. I keep saying I will try the trench stuff, but I had some modest success with the Celeriac and liked that, so will try again this year.

[roitelet]

I've grown it from seed but it is a faff, I now buy plants of the self branching variety. Celery is a bog plant and needs loads of water and must never dry out, it makes it stringy. I use soaker pots to ensure a good supply of water, seems to work well. I've had some really good heads this year.

[rary]

Yes the young plants that I have bought in the past were self blanching, but if they are bog plants I reckon the trench variety should do ok in my garden as this is one of the wettest areas of the country

[KevinM67]

I tried it for the first time this year (Victoria - self-blanching).

Sprinkled quite a few seeds liberally, but thinly with some vermiculite in a 10cm pot and left uncovered on a south facing window sill.
This was around mid-March and I watered from the bottom and gently misted the top of pot regularly.

It seemed to take an age to germinate and germination rate was quite poor - however I only wanted 12 plants (only about 15 or 16 germinated).

I transplanted them when they were big enough into their own pots and used grow lights to promote growth.

They went outside when my tomatoes went out, were watered thoroughly regularly and grew really well.

I picked a fair bit - unfortunately towards the end though it suffered from orange/pink holes, with some hollow stalks (I can't remember what it is called).

Will I grow it this coming year - definitely, my soups have never tasted better.

(Sorry for the ramble).

[veggiechicken]

May I intrude please?

I have several packets of celery seeds and, truth is, I'm not that keen on it, so I wouldn't want to grow sooper dooper big heads. Just a few leaves for flavouring.
From the earlier posts, it seems to be a difficult seed to grow ................so...................... what would happen if I just emptied them on the soil and left them to it? Would any grow? Any tips please.

[Aberdeenplotter]

How Long Does it Take Celery to Germinate? | Home Guides | SF Gate

some reading material :??)

[Aberdeenplotter]

I'll be sowing my celery seed for exhibition later this week. I'll fill a half sized tray with riddled gp compost, water it and then firm it down, then sprinkle the seed on top of the compost and cover lightly with fine vermiculite. It will then go in to my grow bench under lights and with bottom heat and then I may well pray for good germination.

[veggiechicken]

Cheers, Ap - may your prayers be answered.

I've read this one https://www.growveg.co.uk/guides/gro...lery-two-ways/
not that it answers my questions!

[HoneyChild]

The only celery I've grown has been some weird red variety that's pretty small and very strong tasting. I'm not a huge fan of celery but tend to put it in soup quite a lot. The red celery I grow is way stronger in flavour than the supermarket type and the soup I made with it ended up tasting entirely of celery and I couln't eat it.

The other year I grew them in pots and they self seeded when I used the compost for other porposes, so I just transplanted them into a raised bed. I ended up not even eating them and they got totally flattended by the snow.

Due to the fact that I don't espeically like them I don't take much mental note about how to grow them. Basically I think you can sow the seeds any time you like. They'll germinate when they feel like it. You can even grow them late summer and they'll over winter if given protection (e.g in a greenhouse).

I'm not sure if any of the above is helpful but generally I've found them easy to grow.