Grow your own Celery

Celery isn’t the easiest vegetable to grow, but once you’ve mastered the art you’ll be the envy of all your gardening friends, as celery is a very attractive addition to the vegetable patch. Here are a few basic rules to keep in mind when growing this lovely soup and salad staple:

Step-by-step guide for growing your own :

• Choose a sunny spot in your garden with well-draining sandy soil. The area should preferably receive about 6 hours of sunlight a day, but should be sheltered during the hottest time of the day.
• Add a generous amount of well-rotted compost to the soil and remove any big stones or weeds.
• Celery seeds are very small, so it helps to mix them with fine, sandy soil before sowing to ensure that you sow them finely enough. Cover them with just a little bit of soil, as celery seeds like to be planted fairly shallowly. Germination will occur within the next three weeks.
• Once the seedlings appear, thin them out so that they are spaced about 20cm apart.
• It’s essential to keep the soil moist at all times, as dry soil will affect the taste of your celery.
• Feed your celery seedlings with a liquid fertilizer like MultiFeed once every two weeks.
• Your celery is ready to harvest about four months after sowing. Pick the outer stems first so that the inner (younger) ones have more time to mature.

Did you know? – Celery is packed with minerals, vitamins and iron, but is very low in calories, making it a very healthy snack