Celery

2024 Author: Gavin MacAdam | [email protected]. Last modified: 2024-01-07 15:51

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Latin name: Apium Family: Umbrella, or Celery Categories: Vegetable crops, Herbs

Celery (lat. Apium) - a biennial herb of the family Umbrella, or Celery.

Crop characteristics and common varieties

Celery is a vegetable plant that, in the first year of cultivation, forms a rosette of glossy dark green leaves, fleshy petioles and root crops. In the second year, the plant forms an erect, furrowed stem 30-100 cm high and an umbellate inflorescence that blooms in mid-July. The seeds ripen in the first decade of August, after which the plant dies.

Celery leaves are large, pinnately dissected, dark green, shiny on the outside, matte on the inside. The flowers are white, small, collected in umbellate inflorescences. Fruits are round in shape, reach 1.5-2.5 mm in diameter, can be brown-brown or gray in color.

Celery is widespread in Italy, France and England; it is not yet very popular in Russia, although the culture is grown in the southern regions of the country quite actively. Wild forms of the plant grow along the shores of the Mediterranean Sea.

Proven varieties: early ripening - Delicacy and Yablochny; mid-early - Root Gribovsky; stalked celery - White Feather, Golden Path, Utah, Pascal and Golden Feather; root celery - Magdeburg, Apia and Frigga.

Growing conditions

Celery is a cold-resistant plant, the seeds germinate even at a temperature of 5C, however, the optimum temperature for development and growth is 18-22C. The culture has a positive attitude towards moderately moist, fertile and loose soils with a pH of 5, 5-6, 5, with a deep arable layer. Prefers areas well lit by the sun. acidic soils for growing celery are not suitable; they are preliminarily lime-wood ash or lime. The best predecessors of the crop are potatoes, zucchini, tomatoes, cauliflower and white cabbage and cucumbers.

Landing

Ridges for growing celery are prepared in the fall, the soil is dug to a depth of 27-30 cm, humus, compost or manure, superphosphate and potassium salt are added. In the spring, soil cultivation is repeated and fed with ammonium nitrate, it is desirable to enrich the site with magnesium, calcium and boron, these elements prevent the appearance of chlorosis of the leaves.

Most often, celery is planted by seedlings. The thing is that the seeds of a plant, due to the content of essential oils in them, do not germinate well. If sowing is carried out in open ground, then the seeds are soaked in wet gauze for several days before pecking.

The seedling method of growing celery is the most effective, moreover, it allows you to get an early harvest. Sowing seeds for seedlings is carried out two months before the intended planting in open ground. To do this, they are sown in wooden boxes filled with soil substrate. A distance of 5-6 cm is left between the radas, the embedment depth is 0.5 cm.

Crops are sprayed with a spray bottle, covered with foil and placed in a warm place until entrances appear. It is important to ensure that the soil in the boxes does not dry out, this will have an extremely negative effect on future seedlings. Severe waterlogging can completely destroy crops. The entrances that appear are covered with a soil substrate by 0.5 cm. The picking of the seedlings is carried out after about 4-5 weeks. In open ground, seedlings are planted when the plants reach two months of age, young plants are shaded for 2-3 days. Preferably immediately after planting, the ridges are mulched with sawdust, peat or fallen leaves.

Care

Caring for celery consists in regular watering, weeding, loosening and feeding. A week after transplanting, celery is fed with superphosphate, ammonium nitrate and potassium chloride, and the feeding is repeated two weeks later.

Petiole celery varieties, in addition to the above-mentioned agrotechnical measures, need high hilling. This procedure helps to whiten the petioles, get rid of bitterness and pungent odors. The lateral roots of root celery are cut off in the middle of summer, this technique will allow you to form the largest possible fruit.

Harvesting

For the entire gardening season, 2-3 harvests of greenery are removed. Harvesting begins at the end of July, the next cut is carried out in about 40-45 days. Cutting is done high, the residual aerial part should be at least 6-7 cm. The petiole and root celery are harvested in late September - early October.