How to Grow Celery in Your Vegetable Garden

While people that are actually successful growing celery are thought of as having a green thumb, it is not an impossible vegetable to grow. celery has seen an explosion in popularity since more people are becoming health conscious. Celery has virtually no calories yet it offers vitamins and minerals. In fact, celery is considered a food with negative calories so you actually burn more calories eating it than you consume.

Environment for Growing Celery

Growing celery takes a lot of patience, care, proper temperature and the perfect growing environment. You will need rich conditions with constant moisture and good drainage to achieve deep roots and strong stalks. After all, the last thing that you want is stringy celery.

It is a good idea to prepare your trench well before you start growing celery. Your trench should be filled half way full with leaves, scraps, compost or rotted manure. If you want to be successful at growing celery, you need to sprinkle some lime in the soil too for calcium. This should be left to settle before you plant for a couple of weeks. Then, you need to mulch to maintain consistent growth and retain moisture.

Germination

Growing celery takes approximately five months. Celery seeds get better with age so try to find some that are a couple of years old. Start your seedlings inside because the seeds are very tiny and hard to sow. You will need a lot of containers because you want to aim to put as few seeds as possible in each container.

Once the seeds germinate and you are able to trim them, do so. Continue to do this until you end up with only one per pot. Once you are sure that there is no risk of another frost, you can go ahead and transplant these to the trench. Plant them one foot apart. Rows need to be two feet apart.

General Care

If you are attempting growing celery, you need to know that these are hungry and thirsty plants. They need a lot of water and fertilizer. Celery plants need rich soil and full sunlight so choose your location carefully and offer plenty of compost and mulch.

You have to be very patient when growing celery. There is a good chance that you won't get it right the first time. Snails, slugs and toxins can really affect your plants. You also need to watch for celery leaf spot. If you see this on your plants, deal with it quickly before it spreads to the rest of your plants.

Celery is Friendly

Many other plants in your garden will appreciate you growing celery as well. Celery plants are very good companions. If you have dwarf beans, plant your celery near them because their roots can provide your celery with nitrogen. Cabbage plants love celery because they scare white butterflies away that usually prey on them. Also, dill, leeks and tomatoes can be planted with your celery too.

Growing celery is difficult but if you succeed, you get great vegetables and you can call yourself an ultimate gardener!

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