Celery Transplanting

[Durgan]

I juice most of the produce that I grow. Usually 8 celery plants are grown. I usually use celery in the juices. I keep picking the outer stalks as needed. The plants survive until freeze up and I and hardly keep up using all the material produced. Late in the season the whole plant will be pulled and used.


http://www.durgan.org/2015/August%20...%20Juice/HTML/ 26 August 2015 Onion Celery Juice
Thirty pounds of onions and ten pounds of celery was made into 14 liters of juice. The perfect onions were washed and quartered and added to the celery in the cooking pot. Ten liters of water was added to the pot. Material was cooked until soft about 20 minutes and blended into a homogeneous slurry. The slurry was strained through a Victorio food mill. The residue of the food mill was put through a Champion Juicer to extract all nutrients. The juice was then placed on liter jars and pressure canned at 15 PSI for 15 minutes.

[salix]

PMCGrady - I wonder if the cement tiles were used as a method of blanching the celery, instead of planting in a furrow and backfilling or mulching. I have read of people covering with cardboard sleeves, but they tend to not weather very well, or succumb to mild/mildew... The cement would keep the suns rays away, and also hold moisture.

[Jeannine Anne]

My father grow them in terracotta pipes or clay chimney pots and filled them in as the grew.

I think it is easier to get the self blanching varieties or grow celeriac.

[Durgan]

I always associated the green celery with quality. I also use the leaves which the marketers are wont to trim off, much to my annoyance.

[Raiquee]

Justin,

How did your celery turn out? Thanks to you, I saw this post early in the season enough that I started my own seed right about when you did. It was a great transplant in the house. As long as I kept it water and the lights right down on it, it seemed to stay manageable and healthy.

I planted them out oh I don't remember when, probably early-mid June. They are now large. Very large. I didn't hill them, to help blanch out the stems and bring the foilage up higher on them. I just wasn't fond of doing that much extra work with them. I got a good wack of em if you can see. Please excuse the cruddy photos, I was getting eaten alive.

Now I'm trying to hurry and eat things out of the freezer as these puppies are coming up and going in there! I saw someone took off extra leaves, dehydrated them and made celery salt with them. Sounds like a great idea.

IMG_1811.jpg

IMG_1812.jpg

IMG_1813.jpg

[greenthumbomaha]

I was just gearing up to start my indoor lettuce/ scallion/dwarf pea routine in Earthbox JR. I've been doing it winter growing for two years now. I may break out the expensive LED's I bought which are now one quarter the price and add parthenocarpic cukes to the party.

Celery is the earliest seed I start (I gave up on artichokes) , but in the past I've ultimately neglected the transplants which resulted in a stringy stalk. Were any northern gardeners successful in getting a head that was thick and juicy enough to eat raw? I've heard of people growing regular celery for market but I don't know if they're greenhouse or hoop growers. They don't sell celery transplants here for a reason.

- Lisa

Hmm went up a few posts, maybe durgan tell describe how he gets those beautiful stalks

[jmsieglaff]

Just saw this thread now. The celery turned out well--looked a lot like yours. My only change will be to start it later (as an effort not to get root bound) so I can plant it out a bit later--as my celery ended up bolting, which I believe was because it was exposed to too cold of temperatures too often/too long of a period in earlier spring (it survived those cold nights just fine).

The celery was mulched heavily and I watered it at least a couple times a week. It had much more celery flavor than anything from the store--but I think that was because it was darker green because I let it grow open and get sun light to the stalks--probably more nutritious too.

[bower]

Lisa, the questions about celery quality are interesting. I got very different results with three different treatments./locations this year. I had some in the greenhouse which were sweet and juicy and crunchy perfect celery until I started to neglect watering them in the fall. After that the outer stems got hollow, they were ok for cooking not for eating fresh. A second batch were planted in a big container outdoors in full sun. I was disappointed with the quality late summer, they were tough. I think they were too densely planted and didn't get enough water for the full sun situation. Later cut them all in the fall and was surprised that the quality was improved. We had had a lot of rain and colder temps. Third batch went into a terrace bed which is quite sheltered and partial shade. These were tender and crisp all the while, I don't think they ever got dried out because wind is the big dryer here. Another difference with the greenhouse celery, it was paler green than the outdoors ones, which had the most intense color as well as flavor.

So far I am thinking that fresh eating quality is all about the water. If you plant them somewhere they won't dry out, it doesn't have to be full sun maybe better not. Size of stalks depends on how much/often you feed them.

Kudos to anyone who managed to grow only as much celery as they needed! Again I had gazoodles of seedlings and more than I could eat. Still harbouring eight plants in the greenhouse, the outer stalks got hollow from negelect but the inner are still good. Past experience says they may get heart rot in the cold though, before I ever eat so many.

It is a curious thing that the market for celery is not much indeed. I tried selling seedlings one year and got no interest at all. Yet you cannot go in a supermarket without seeing stacks of the stuff available, bland, watery, loaded with pesticides (they say)... someone must buy it.
I made some celery pickles this year, haven't tried them yet.

[greenthumbomaha]

Thank you for the information, Bower. This gives me an idea for a location that just might work!

I planted my dwarf tomatoes in a bed that was shaded by a fence on the east side. There just wasn't enough sunlight to produce enough tomatoes (less than 5 per plant) for the time, effort,space and money spent. Time will tell if there is enough morning sun for celery. Luckily there's also a sprinkler head nearby for use when its too hot to hand water.

My first attempt for growing celery was in a 5 gal bucket which kept the plant alive but produced a thin stalk with lots of leaves. I agree with your observation that without copious amounts of water the ultimate product is nothing like a commercial bundle. No one to blame but myself. Nevertheless, I routinely buy a bunch of celery, use a quarter of the stalks in egg salad and the rest gets wasted.

It's amazing that you still have plants in December. Let us know how the pickles are.

- Lisa

[salix]

I always tell the recipients of my celery seedlings to give them lots of water - it's my understanding that celery (or its antecedents) is a swamp or bog plant. I still have a few in a large pot in the cold dark garage, just enough for another month's worth of skinny stems and leaves for egg salad sandwiches and such.

[bower]

Just ate the last of the pickles a couple of days ago. I will definitely do this again. I used a mix of mild hot peppers, fresh onions and diced celery, and poured hot brine over them, sealed and kept them in the fridge. The little celery bits were still crisp after six months.

I have a couple of celery plants still alive in the greenhouse and starting to put on new growth. May have to pickle them before they bolt.

[greenthumbomaha]

I'm waging war on aphids and spider mites indoors and it doesn't take many to end the party. I just tossed all my parsley seedlings because of aphids, and I'm starting a 24 hour parsley seed soak again. Has anyone had issues with aphids on their celery seedlings indoors? I was going to pot up tonight, about half fox farms and the remaining in wondersoil. I'm banking on avoiding spider mites with consistent watering but no guarantee I guess.


- Lisa

[bower]

Aphids.. celery... yes. They love the stuff.

[GrowingCoastal]

This week I found aphids on a potted salvia that is being wintered over in my cool garage. Checking the new shoots that are growing 2 mos early, there they were. I often have aphids appear on wintered over plants in January. A soon as days lengthen even a little, there they are.

[Whwoz]

I have not had much luck germinating Celery or Celeriac seed. Any tricks or tips that people can suggest would be greatly appricated