You may recall that celery comes in at a repulsive #4 on the "Dirty Dozen" list. We tried to grow some last year, both in a raised garden bed and in a pot on the back porch. The plants grew very slowly, resulting in lots of leaves and little stems. But they were hardy and survived til the coldest winter months. I cut them off, chopped, and froze the leafy/spindly stem collection. It was a great addition to winter soups and casseroles. I would have planted it again just for that, simply because I like the celery flavor but really don't care that much about large chunks in foods. But imagine my surprise when, this spring, they came roaring to life, now with big stems. Apparently, celery is a perennial that does much better on year two. It's been fairly cool and very wet this spring, yet the celery is raring to go. You can see it here, behind the parsley (which also is doing much better in it's second year, btw.)
I'd love to fill an entire garden bed with perennial vegetables. It's so much fun to see edible stuff come to life in the spring. Anyone know of other vegetables that do this? Someday I'll plant asparagus, but I'm not quite ready for the prep work yet.
I can finally strike
The mint is going gangbusters in a pot on our back porch as well. Isn't spring amazing??
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3 comments:
This is a great piece of information! Will have to try it ourselves!
I had no idea celery does this! thanks for sharing!
Love growing veggies in our garden also! This year cannot due to some unfortunate rodents roaming around our back patio and backyard! We had to take down our birdfeeder due to them recently spotted nibbling leftover hulls from the birdseeds (miss watching our goldfinches at the feeder!). Our neighbour does open composting which is not great as attracts rodents i.e. big rats to the neighbouring yards. Cannot put out any traps nor offending poisons to rid of them either due to people's cats and our dog in the backyard. Envy your veggie this year as we love growing tomatoes, beans, peas, lettuce, carrots, green peppers. Didn't know that about celery. Foxgloves are biennials too. Zoe from Canada with DD Alexa from Guangxi, China, now 7 months since gotcha day.
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