![]() This is normally done through a process called blanching. The leaves need sunlight, but stalks need shade to remain white, sweet, and tender. Celery harvest at the right time is important to prevent pithiness, yellowing leaves, or the plant going to seed or bolting. ![]() Harvesting celery should be done before hot temperatures occur outside as this can make the celery woody if not well watered. Time of planting of the crop will dictate the time to harvest for celery. ![]() ![]() Normally, the time to harvest for celery is 85 to 120 days after transplant. The time for picking celery is usually after it has been planted for three to five months and should happen before temperatures soar. Harvesting celery that is the right color and texture and properly bunched speaks to your green thumb abilities. All parts of the celery plant are edible - stalks, leaves, root and seeds, with the latter having a particularly strong celery flavor that is delicious in soups and stews.Learning how to harvest celery is a worthwhile goal if you’ve been able to grow this somewhat difficult crop to maturity. It makes its green growth the first year, and then sends up a flower stalk and makes prolific seeds in its second year, before it dies. If there is enough time left before frost, the plant will then regrow again from the root.Ĭelery is a biennial plant, meaning that its natural life span is two years. You can also harvest the whole plant while young about an inch above ground, and new celery stalks will grow from the root.īut the most common way of harvesting celery is to wait until it is full grown, blanch it (as above) for a week to ten days, and then harvest the whole thing by cutting it off about an inch or two above soil level. One way of harvesting celery is to just take one stalk at a time at any stage of growth, whenever a stalk is large enough to be useful. Another way to blanch celery is to use fall leaves or straw as a mulch, and mound it up around the stalks to block the light. The celery leaf tops should stick out of the top - if they don’t, trim the carton down so that they do. One good way of blanching celery is to cut the bottom and top off a milk carton, squeeze the stalks together and gently slide the milk carton over the lot. This actually decreases the nutritional content because the chlorophyll and other plant pigments will be reabsorbed, but it makes for more tender and better tasting celery. In order to ensure that the celery stalks do not get too tough, stringy or bitter, they should be blanched about a week to ten days before you plan to harvest them. The three types (and their specific varieties) show minor variations in preferred conditions, so follow your seed packet instructions. celeriac (fat-root celery, same genus as celery but a different species).self-blanching celery (a taller leaf celery that can have white or pink stalks).leaf celery (like the kind in the store).Most people want to grow the typical stalk/leaf type celery similar to what you find in the grocery store, but there are three basic types: The seeds must never be allowed to dry out, and this is one case where having one of those self-watering mat trays underneath the seed flat might be good insurance against forgetting-to-water. But if I did grow it, I would plant the seeds on the surface of the soil and then cover them with a light sprinkling of soil. My true confession is: I'm not actually growing celery in my hot, dry Colorado garden, because I find it too much work to create conditions that are to its liking here. At midlife, if the temperature is right, it will take off.īecause it is such a slow starter, if you live where there are noticeable winters, start growing celery seeds indoors in late winter or early spring, in seed flats under bright lights. Growing Celery from SeedĬelery is very slow to germinate (2-3 weeks), and is also very slow growing until it reaches its stride at about midlife. ![]() The original celery ancestor was called “smallage”, and it was much stronger-flavored than our modern celery, being used more as an herb for seasoning than as a vegetable. If you think of celery as a northern European marsh plant (the native habitat of the original wild celery) you will get an idea of how to provide celery with the right conditions. ![]()
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