Celery and all its friends

Cel­ery is an over­looked veg­etable for your gar­den because cel­ery is so widely avail­able, inex­pen­sive and more chal­leng­ing to grow than most veg­eta­bles. Maybe you’ll change your mind after read­ing this, and grow one or more of the celery-flavored plants.

After an edu­ca­tional pro­gram in May, Nancy Reynolds (a mas­ter gar­dener) shared a fun way to grow your own cel­ery by using a por­tion of an exist­ing cel­ery stalk. Sim­ply cut off the bot­tom 3 inches of the entire stalk of cel­ery and place it in a shal­low bowl of water. Watch for about a week and you will begin to see new shoots com­ing out the top. When the shoots reach about 3 inches you trans­fer the stalk to the gar­den. Bury the stalk into the soil up to the level of the new shoots. Watch your new stalk of cel­ery grow. You can con­tinue this process on each stalk of cel­ery for the entire sum­mer. A fun idea and great recy­cling tip.

Cel­ery is a cook’s best friend, used in a mix­ture known by its many names such as mire­poix, refo­gado, sof­fritto or the holy trin­ity. It’s basi­cally a mix­ture of cel­ery, car­rots and onions. Some­time it is cooked in but­ter, olive oil, and can have gar­lic or leeks added. It is the base of many soups, stocks and sauces around the world.

The taste of fresh cel­ery out of the gar­den will have a slightly dif­fer­ent taste than you are used to, so you may need some exper­i­men­ta­tion with your favorite recipes. The taste will also be dif­fer­ent depend­ing on vari­eties. It tends to have a stronger taste of cel­ery, unlike the blanched light green type you have in the gro­cery store.

Cel­ery grown in your gar­den will not resem­ble the light green stalks that you buy at the gro­cery store. They will be a much darker color, could have hints of red or be a medium shade of green. The one thing about cel­ery in the gar­den is that you can pick a stalk at a time and use as needed. This idea also extends the use of your cel­ery for a longer period. The plant will not mind that you pick as needed, it will remain in the gar­den. The time frame for grow­ing from seed is 80 to 100 days depend­ing on vari­ety. Cel­ery requires lots of water and loose moist soil with a sup­ply of nutrients.

They will do best in a raised bed that has been amended with organic com­post. Pick a spot in the gar­den that can be shielded from the hot after­noon sun, like on the north side of climb­ing vines such as cucum­ber, beans or peas. You can use a row cover to extend your har­vest into the early win­ter months. You’ll need to har­vest the entire plant by cut­ting off at ground level before the tem­per­a­tures falls into the teens.

If grow­ing cel­ery sounds like too much work for you, you can try some cel­ery sub­sti­tutes that pack a punch of fla­vor. Cele­riac (Apium grave­olens) is also known as cel­ery root or turnip rooted cel­ery. The cele­riac stalks are not meant to be eaten, since they have a strong, bit­ter taste. The root grows below the ground but will extend above the ground level. The taste is a sweeter, nut­tier and a no-string ver­sion of cel­ery. It can be eaten raw or cooked. Cele­riac is won­der­ful as a replace­ment for mashed pota­toes, or mixed with them for an added fla­vor. Like cel­ery it requires a long grow­ing sea­son. It can take up to 110 days, so seeds must be started indoors to get a jump start in your gar­den. The require­ments for soil, nutri­ents and water are the same as for celery.

Cut­ting cel­ery, a vari­ety of Apium grave­olens, is often called soup cel­ery. It has been around for a while but has recently hit the mar­ket with a new pop­u­lar­ity. The cut­ting cel­ery devel­ops into a foun­tain shaped plant with stems topped with fresh scented leaves that have an unmis­tak­able cel­ery fla­vor. The nice fea­ture of this plant is that it can be placed in the veg­etable gar­den, herb gar­den or grown in a con­tainer. Cut­ting cel­ery can with­stand tem­per­a­tures down to about 20 degrees, so this is a good can­di­date for long sea­son crop. Placed in a cold frame or cov­ered with row cover, you can be cut­ting it into the winter.

Lovage (Lev­is­ticum offic­i­nale) is a vig­or­ous peren­nial herb that pro­vides another alter­na­tive to cel­ery. It’s been called cel­ery on steroids. Unlike cut­ting cel­ery, lovage will need some room to grow. It is not a mem­ber of the same fam­ily as the other celeries, but the fla­vor is very closely related. It will last for the entire sum­mer, die back over the win­ter and be one of the first things peak­ing out of the soil in spring. Lovage is often easy to find at a nurs­ery so start­ing with a plant makes it easy to grow. If you choose to grow from seed, it is another slow grower, so be patient. A really cool and fun thing about lovage is that the stalks are hol­low, so trim them up and use as drink­ing straws at your next get together, espe­cially with a Bloody Mary.

Cel­ery stalks and leaves can be used for sal­ads, soups, stuff­ing and chut­neys. Like other herbs you can har­vest in the fall, chop the leaves and freeze them in ice cube trays to use through­out the win­ter. Dry­ing cut­ting cel­ery or lovage will result in a less fla­vor­ful addi­tion to your cook­ing. Exper­i­ment and have fun with cel­ery and all its friends.

Mark your cal­en­dars: Join the Mas­ter Gar­den­ers at the YMCA on Houk Road for our next com­mu­nity gar­den edu­ca­tional series. Pam Rice will present a pro­gram on gar­den main­te­nance. The pro­gram runs from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. June 21. Rice will talk about top­ics such as how to main­tain, water, weed and com­post within your gar­den at home or a com­mu­nity garden.

Susan Liechty is an OSU Exten­sion Mas­ter Gar­dener volunteer.

Posted by Master Gardener on Jun 8 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.