I was cleaning up and decided to pull this celery plant that has been languishing away. It flowered, bees and wasps visited it. But it was time to get tidy and it never even gave me a harvest beyond a few leafy stalks for soup last winter.
It was growing in a #5 nursery pot. Another celery plant was in another #5 pot and provided both celery and flowers for the bees. A third plant got huge, growing in a 5gallon garden center bucket. It's still on display and being visited by all kinds of flying insects. Some good, and I figure some bad, but if they like the overgrown celery better than my tomatoes and cauliflower, then it's earning its keep. All 3 plants got the same treatment, watering schedule, soil, light, and location. This one never got more than a foot tall, and it only got that big when it bolted.
I pulled it out of the pot and found this:
And that is the entire root system. The other #5 pot had roots throughout the entire pot. Many large main roots and a network of fine hair roots that were circling the pot. I planted the seeds late last JULY and planted them in pots in September. I swear, these little pods are indestructible. I usually peel them off. I didn't in this case, because the roots had grown into it and I was nervous about disturbing them so drastically. Live and learn.
