HelpfulGardener.com

Very good information here, now I know what I am doing wrong.

https://extension.usu.edu/yardandgarden ... the-garden

Stored in the fridge through recent months, we had celeriac in beef soup with pearled barley, today. Carrots, onions, garlic ... bay leaves.

My one attempt to grow celery was an embarrassment. It amounted to nothing. After that, I wanted to try celeriac but had no real expectation that it would work. I associate celery with the Monterey Peninsula in California. This is very different country and climate here .

Twenty plus years later, I am still growing celeriac and enjoying its starchy roots, mostly wherever it makes sense to have them with or replacing potatoes. For one cup, the USDA says peeled and boiled celeriac have 41.8 kcal. Peeled and boiled potatoes have 134.2 kcal. Less than ⅓rd the calories but not "0 calories" as reported in your article for celery.

We still buy and use celery — we like celery flavor . Maybe I will try growing it again but, there's no question, it will not store as well as celeriac and I never see those roots in local stores.

The plants require an early, indoor start and the entire season. They do seem to really require a complete fertilizer. Our well-drained soil works for them and irrigation 2x/week, with 3/4" of water each time. That frequency seems a minimum for a good harvest.

Steve

I grew celery twice. The first time I planted celery in the garden where there is good soil I put an irrigation levee around it and watered it every day. I gave plants mostly nitrogen and some 15-15-15 fertilizer the plants grew good celery but not very large. We harvested stalks as needed.

The second time I grew celery I planted it near the back door after tilling in a lot of good soil and fertilizer. I gave plants a lot of water very day and fertilizer too but celery never grew larger that a pencil and it was very low flavor.

This year I did not plant celery.

Information above says soil needs to be very soft celery roots are small and not aggressive. Very soft organic soil needs to be hilled up around celery plant so celery stalks gets no sunlight. Celery leaves need sunlight not the stalks. I was surprised to learn celery needs 21-0-0 fertilizer and 1 other fertilizer that is high potassium. Now that I know what celery plants like I might grow it 1 more time this coming summer. I though our TN hot 100° temperature was probably a problem for celery but the info above is for growing celery in Utah that is very hot dry desert weather.

I only grow cutting celery. It isn't cold enough to grow regular celery.

imafan26 wrote: ↑

Sat Dec 21, 2024 3:28 pm

I only grow cutting celery. It isn't cold enough to grow regular celery.

Interesting. I did not know there are 2 kinds of celery. Our local Amish garden store sells generic celery.

I’ve been growing celery, and I’ve found that seed starting part is pretty straightforward, and even OP seeds tend to sprout all at once and grow more or less uniformly. (Some varieties from memory are Utah, Green Venture and Red Venture as well as Golden and one other popular variety I can’t think of atm)

They are super susceptible to the early spring aphids, so you do have to watch out for that, but because you can readily start extra seeds, it’s not too hard to cull down to the number of plants you want to keep.

I DO have trouble growing the thick juicy stems, so mine have generally been halfway between leaf celery (with more like parsley stems) and the store celery — ending up with thicker than just stem, but dense and not as tender stems. I believe most of the problems can be traced to the clay subsoil and summer drought.

That said, since a couple of years ago, celery have been surciving the winter here and going to see in the 2nd year, to scatter and self seed and grow again. I’ve also sown the seeds as soon as they are ripe in designated beds, but they seem to really like the edges of the raised beds and along the swale/path where presumably the seeds end up getting washed away to, and tend to form clusters.

I’ve been eyeing those Chinese pink stemmed celery to try growing. Haven’t bought seeds yet, but maybe I will for the coming season.

So far, I haven’t been able to manage the celeriac beyond seedling stage, but I do want to try again with fresh seeds.