Fragrant Celery

2024 Author: Gavin MacAdam | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 13:38

Fragrant celery was known since ancient times: in antiquity, celery was already used as a spice and as a medicinal plant. Root celery first appeared in the sixteenth century.

Fragrant celery should be classified as celery or umbellate. This culture belongs to the group of spicy aromatic root crops. Fragrant celery is a biennial vegetable plant, which in the first year of life forms a rosette of leaves and a root, which will form a root crop. The next year, a flowering stem appears, and the seeds also ripen.

There are three groups of celery: leaf, root, and petiolate. As for the root variety, roots and leaves are eaten here, but petioles and leaves are used for leafy varieties. As you might guess from the name, stalked celery is especially prized for its stalks and leaves.

Both types of celery are grown in Russia today: both root and leaf. The plant can be grown in open and protected ground. The specific pleasant smell of this plant is due to the presence in its composition of an essential oil called sedanolide.

The use of fragrant celery

Celery leaves contain a large amount of vitamin C and vitamin A. As for root crops, it contains carotene, vitamin B and PP, as well as mineral salts and organic acids.

The greens of this culture can be consumed fresh. Also, greens can be salted, dried or frozen. Root vegetables can also be eaten fresh, and besides that, they can also be boiled and stewed as a side dish or as an independent dish.

Celery is used to prepare soups and main courses, various sauces and seasonings. Very often, celery is used for pickling and canning. Roots and petioles, like greens, can be dried and frozen.

Care and cultivation

For the favorable development of this celery, light soils are needed, with a neutral or slightly alkaline reaction. Potatoes, cabbage, tomatoes and cucumbers are ideal precursors for this crop.

The yield of this crop will be facilitated by its cultivation on sandy loam, loose, fertile soils or on cultivated peatlands. Manure should only be applied under the pre-celery crop. In the fall, the soil must be dug up to a depth of twenty centimeters, humus and superphosphate should be added. In the spring, you will need to feed the soil with a complex mineral fertilizer.

You can plant both seedlings and seeds. The seedlings that are intended for planting should already contain at least four leaves. The ripening period for such seedlings will be about two to two and a half months. In open ground, seeds can be grown from mid-May, and seeds for seedlings are planted at the end of February or at the beginning of May.

Celery needs sunlight, which should not be forgotten when choosing a planting site. The row spacing in the bed should be about forty centimeters, planting in a checkerboard pattern is also permissible.

For competent care of this crop, it will be necessary to perform fertilizing twice per season: first two weeks after planting the seedlings, and then another three weeks after this moment. Potash and phosphorus fertilizers should be used as top dressing. Potassium works well for root celery, while leaf crops require both nitrogen and potassium.

The culture needs regular and fairly abundant watering. The ripening time for different varieties is very different.

Application in traditional medicine

Traditional medicine recommends the use of celery for kidney disease, rheumatism and bladder disease. For obesity and salt deposition, this culture can also have a beneficial effect. For diseases of the gastrointestinal tract, celery is also used as a medicine.