cell size for celery?

[bower]

I started some celery, mass planted in a small tub and boy there are a lot of em. First time growing celery so I've been reading up and trying to do the thing: moderate temperatures, keep em moist etc. From what I read, celery should be planted to 4 inch pots when they're one inch tall.... but winter's dragging on, and I really don't have the space for many 4 inch pots. The baby celeries are quite tiny too, for such a large pot it seems.

I have a lot of small cell packs (the kind that are 72 to a 1020 tray). Are these any use for baby celery at all? Or will they be stunted by the small cells? Or maybe bolt because of it?

Second, my plants are not quite an inch tall from cotyledons to leaves, but a fair bit of stalk below that maybe due to the crowded condition. Should I plant them deep ie up to the cotyledons?

Advice much appreciated, TIA.

[kath]

I've never mass planted celery- but I do start seeds in 72-cell trays and thin to one seedling/cell. They stay in these for quite a few weeks as they grow very slowly. When the roots have filled the cells nicely but aren't yet rootbound, I pot up in either 12 or 16 oz. Solo cups until setting out in the garden. I'm not sure what kind of root system yours have and have no idea how fond celery roots are of disturbance.

Since you mentioned that it's your first time growing celery and that you have a lot of plants, I'll mention that we eat a fair amount raw and use some in cooking; yet for our use, I have trouble using more than about 4-6 celery plants/month so I've taken to succession sowing monthly. The plants take about 12 wks. from emergence to being garden ready.

I've never had celery bolt, so I can't speak to that.

Stalks on celery are a good thing- I've always set the plants at the same level when transplanting, making sure the growing point in the center isn't covered by soil.

kath

[habitat_gardener]

I did a dense planting of Redventure celery in a 4-inch pot several years ago. I got so many tiny plants! I potted up some of them to 6-pack cells and when I got tired of separating plants, I gave the rest away as a block. Since then it's reseeded every year, and I transplant them where I want them. They seem to tolerate root disturbance at any small size (I don't transplant anything larger than about 4" high, though).

They grow slowly and the slugs love them when the stalks get big enough to hide in. I've never had celery go to seed before it's full size.

They're fairly bitter so I don't eat much raw, but perhaps I should be excluding light once they get big to reduce the bitterness.

[Durgan]

I grow four to eight plants of celery each year and use for adding to vegetable juice. One tiny plants grows to a large plant with many stalks total about a foot or more in diamerter. Stalks can be utilized one at time to keep the plant going all Summer. There is absolutely no reason to mass grow many plants.

http://www.durgan.org/URL/?QKUOF 17 September 2013 Four Vegetable Juice
The end of the growing season is approaching. It was decided to make juice from some of the remaining vegetables, kale,tomatoes,celery and green peppers. About 20 pounds were processed for a total of eleven litres of juice, which was pressure canned at 15 PSI for 15 minutes for storage.Pictures depict the process.

[kath]

Originally Posted by habitat_gardener

They're fairly bitter so I don't eat much raw, but perhaps I should be excluding light once they get big to reduce the bitterness.

I tried blanching several different ways (only attracts more slugs) and also self-blanching types but never was happy with any of them until I tried Ventura. No blanching and yet the hearts are great raw- I cook with/dehydrate the outer stalks.

[bower]

Thanks so much, that gives me some idea of the options.

I really didn't mean to start so many, but the seed were so small and didn't seem like much, I expected slow and low germination to get maybe a dozen plants but instead there are probably ? 200. And are they ever cute.

I guess I'll have to bite the bullet and see what the roots are like. I'll try and pick out the bigger ones and give them bigger cells (I have but a few six or four cell types) for our home celery, and try potting the others into 72 cell for now - thinking maybe the farm will take em and get a crop out of it. Or if they can stand the cells for awhile, I could pot them up later and sell starts in solo cups at the market. House is full of young peppers at the moment, no room! And the greenhouse is frozen - horrible cold snap again just now.

hg, thanks for the heads up about slugs - always the villain of the piece in my garden... I'll have to keep the celery out of their favourite spots.

[bower]

The variety I have btw is Utah. That is fairly long season for us, I think - I notice there was Tango on the farm seed order, which is quicker. That's probably the one they grew last year too - dark green with quite a strong taste, I found they dried really quick before I ate it all fresh, but was great dried though for soup... and I did make cream of celery soup from the fresh stuff, it was delicious. Love those fresh stalks for a snack, tho.

[rnewste]

These were my Tango from 2 years ago:



Just be sure to leave a lot of room for them to grow.

Raybo

[bower]

Wow, Raybo, they look great!

I was reading about celery growing in containers, and they say it's a natural for SWC's or SIP's. The water they need on demand.

I am giving that some serious thought, but can't get around the comments that you can't use ordinary potting soil and organic materials for a SIP or SWC. That leaves me out of the picture, if it's true. Drat.

[rnewste]

You can use any brand of Potting Mix, along with Perlite and Microbark - just no soil in a SWC.

Raybo

[Delerium]

We buy Celery from time to time and i re-rooted base cuttings just to see if i can get anything close to the original plant. So far so good.