I only grow celery from left over stalks.

The following info is from the Sunset Vegetable Gardening Book.

quote:

---

Celery needs 4-month long cool growing season. To grow mild-tasting celery, you must use some sort of blanching technique. For example, 3 to 4 weeks before you're going to harvest celery, tie the tops of the stalks together and mound garden soil along the stalks to shut out sunlight. When you're ready to harvest, pull away the soil and cut off the celery plants.

Or you can place a 3-pound coffee can with both ends removed over the seedlings when you plant them, or make tarpaper cylinders or sleeves to slip over the plants. The celery stalks will grow up inside the can or sleeve in a tight clump.

Celery is ready to harvest in 105 to 130 days after planting, when stalks are two-thirds to fully grown.

---

* * * *



Amor est vitae essentia.
Love is the essence of life.

Christina,

Celery does require a long growing season, but it is also very frost tolerant. I've had celery survive my zone 5 winters; (It's a biannual so don't expect much of a celery crop the second year.) If you started in mid-March, you may still grow for another month. You will probably have to blanch it though.

You have to remember that what you buy in the store is usually the celery hearts, hence not as green, and they were probably blanched a bit too. Blanching will also make the flavor more mild and the stalks less stringy.

* * * *
Composting is more than good for your garden. It's a way of life.