Growing Celery
Growing Celery Is Easy, But Watch The Temperature
Growing celery is rather straightforward. Like most vegetables, celery likes a well tilled, organically rich soil. Celery is a biennial, normally grown as an annual. If you have a short growing season, you should start the seeds indoors. Sow the seeds 1/8" deep in a sterile seedling mix for the best chance of success. Sow the seeds about 10 weeks before transplanting the seedlings to the garden. Direct sowing in the vegetable garden is generally not recommended. While the grown plants are to some degree frost tolerant, the seeds require a temperature between 55 and 70 degrees for optimum germination.
When it is time to transplant the seedlings to the garden, set the plants to 12 inches apart, in rows 18 - 24 inches apart. Mix a complete fertilize in with the soil prior to transplanting, as celery is a very heavy feeder. One way to tell when it's a good time to set the plants out is, it will be the same time that you usually introduce peppers and melons to the garden. A problem you can encounter in growing celery is, if you hit a summer cold snap, with night time temperatures dropping below 55 degrees for a week or more, the plants may bolt prematurely, going to seed instead of producing the desired stalks.
In its wild form, celery grows mostly in wet, boggy places. The domesticated plants also like plenty of moisture. Their small roots grow deeply, drawing the maximum amount of moisture from the soil. Once the celery has started to grow, given sufficient moisture, it will present few problems. Celery is generally quite disease and pest resistant. An occasional aphid infestation can be washed away. The disease most often encountered is black heart, which can occur when there is an insufficient amount of calcium in the soil. Diseases can be best avoided through crop rotation and providing adequate moisture. The carrot fly larva can be an occasional pest. Good companion plants for celery are leeks, tomatoes, bush beans, cabbage and cauliflower.
Although you often see complete celery heads in the grocery store, you don't need to harvest the complete heads from the celery in your garden. Just harvest a few stalks at a time. One of the nicer advantages of growing celery in mild winter areas, is the plants will provide stalks or leaves throughout the winter season, and are particularly good eating the following spring.
When you buy celery seeds they will probably be from the previous year's plants. Celery seeds have a shelf life of about 3 years, so unless you set the seed packet off to the side and forget about it for a couple of years, the seeds should germinate properly. A variety of the celery is the celeriac plant. The celeriac is prized for its baseball sized roots. The nutty flavored roots, when cut into bite sized pieces and sautéed are excellent eating.