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Thursday 29 December 2011 Celery has been an interesting crop. Every year we learn a little bit more. We don't get the large watery stems you find in supermarket celery, but we get a much better flavor. The key seems to be water - celery needs lots, in almost swampy conditions - and space to grow. Summer 2011 We tried a new variety from Vesey's Seeds called Tango. It's a Utah-style celery with robust green stems. It must have been a success, since the moose came through one evening in July and chewed off the tops of practically every plant it could reach. *sigh* In any case, we'll try it again next year with the addition of an electric wire around the raised beds. Summer 2010 We grew two varieties this year - Ventura and Giant Red. The Ventura variety did very well, with delicious watery stems. The Giant Red was a beautiful-looking plant, with stems almost 30 inches tall, but the stems were thinner than Ventura and a lot more stringy. We reprised last year's storage success and put the plants, roots and all, in a container in the root cellar. Sadly, the plants aren't storing as well as they did last year. We also tried celeriac this year as an experiment. The plants grew a little, stopped midseason, and went nowhere. Summer 2009 We grew Utah 52-70 this year, and it succeeded very well in the raised beds, protected and heated by the plastic walls. After the season concluded, we took the plants, roots and all, and put them in the root cellar in the lid of a container, poured a lot of water into it, and used the celery for much of the winter. A real successful strategy for keeping the celery tasting good. |
July 2007. |