Celery

Okay, so it's my first time trying to grow celery. My DH cuts it into a green salad every day, so I thought I'd grow some. I put it in a raised bed, good sun exposure, fresh planting mix & compost, and they did great! But they are mostly leaves. There is plenty to cut up, actually, but they don't look like what we buy in the store. One of the plant already went to flower before it got really good stalks on it. Any ideas? Soil too much nitrogen or something else?

Thanks in advance for any input.

Sanna

Where did you buy your celery plant at? There is a celery out there called cutting celery, it's an herb, looks alot like parsley in the beginning, and grows out later on with completely round stalks of celery, which are hard and tough, but when cut young they are quite tasty, Maybe you haev that kind of celery instead of the ones like in the grocery store, I've never been able to get celery to grow like the ones in the store. I just grow the cutting celery now, and I bought it as regular celery too, which is why I asked you about your plant, mine was labeled celery, but I found out later it was the herb cutting celery. never growsup to look like celery, seeds out early. I know with other plants, seeding out is a sign of too much heat/hot weather. some plants just seed out faster than others too like the cilantro. the minute you put it in the ground, it grows into a flower and seeds out.

kathy_ann

Sanna, I grow the celery called French Dinant. Don't have any right now but will try to get in a fall crop. I grow it from seed. The stalks are a bit thinner and the flavor is more pronounced than the Pascal celery sold commercially. Did you grow yours from seed?

I should go see if I have the plant marker still..... I bought a six pack - the stuff is tasty enough - just odd! I will check out your suggestions. And maybe I have a different variety, or extra heat, or ?? Maybe I should have planted it in the fall -- well, thanks much for your input. I shall do some more research!

Sanna

I grew celery last year & the year before in my EarthBox. One variety did better than the other... the better one was "Giant Red" - plenty of stalks before it went to seed.

Also grew that cutting celery. It was OK and I dried a lot for winter use.

I think celery likes to be well watered and have enough fertilizer - this year I put Giant Red in the ground and it's very short, still. May be the lack of rain!

http://www.hort.uconn.edu/ipm/veg/htms/pprborer.htm
http://www.ent.iastate.edu/pest/cornborer/
http://www.uky.edu/Agriculture/Entomology/entfacts/fldcrops/ef108.htm
You may or may not have corn borers. I don't have problems with the early crop, but it is a major pest in late planted corn. It destroys the plant just at the shooting and tasseling stage, so it is quite destructive. It can be controlled with insecticides (Bt or Carbaryl) but it requires timely applications. Ie you have to get them when they are hatching.

Thank you so much Farmerdill.... the moth looks familiar to me, but not in relationship to my plants. I'm thinking it might perhaps be a soil Ph problem, now that I think about it. I also planted two different kinds of broccoli - one was an Italian variety if I remember correctly, that produced HUGE leaves, and the absolute minute I saw broccoli, it went to flower. No kidding! And my regular broccoli has larger than normal leaves too -

Thank you all for your help!

Sanna

Actually the above post was for corn in another thread. The site was acting strange this morning. Kept timing out. So no telling where the celery post went. Anyhow I just confirmed that celery needs a lot of water, almost swamp conditions and is a high nitogen user. As for broccoli, it does not like heat. But if you have nice plants with big leaves, evry thing else should be ok. Many of the Italian cultivars are sprouting broccolis which do not make large heads, just multiple small ones.