The tiny farming action continues mainly indoors with the SEEDLINGS. I’m still starting away, staggering most things, but doing all of the tomatoes right now, all at once. The daily photos mostly tend to be—surprise!—extreme close-ups… So, while looking over today’s image harvest, the familiar plug trays and flats and well-separated seedlings seen up close for a sudden instant looked completely alien and bizarre. All that segregation and attempt at TOTAL PLANT CONTROL looked kinda…crazy. Plug trays: two seeds per cell, packaged under plastic, stuck under kinda ghastly cool white fluorescent lights. Tiny rosemary and celery seedlings (off to a much later than usual start), partitioned off in their own fibrepak flats. Little plant captives, brightly lit, carefully tended. Fanatically patrolled mini-monocultures. Yikes! Of course, the feeling quickly passed. Guess I just wanna get outdoors! :)
What’s your secret on starting celery? I’ve tried twice this spring and both times gotten VERY minimal germination. Are you pre-soaking the seeds or something else that’s eluding me?
Thanks!
I’m looking forward to seeing how you get on with your celery – I’m growing it for the first time this year so looking for all the help I can get!
Laura: Uh, there’s no secret to share! I’ve so far had no problem with germination or growing them on. I tried celery for the first time last year (there are useful comments on that post, and my post-season verdict!), in plug sheets. This year, I just scattered the last of two packets of 3-4 year old seed into a small flat. They started coming up really quickly this year, first few in 6-7 days.
If anything, maybe it’s using relatively a lot of seed, regardless of what the germination rate is. Tiny veg seed like celery is usually also not very expensive by quantity, you get a lot even in a small packet. I tend to use it that way, planting maybe 6-8 seeds where I might use two for something like tomatoes. Here, I didn’t count, just scattered what was left, it wasn’t much, maybe 200-300 seeds. I only want 100 plants for a 100′ bed, so and I think I have that, so I’m happy, even if it’s only 50% germination or less!
Liz: It shouldn’t be hard to grow, the trick may be in getting a usable harvest. Overpoweringly strong taste was a problem for me last year and apparently for others (see the link in the Laura note). It may be variety, watering, temperature and shade, harvest timing… But just getting ’em grown is always a great start! :) Post back with your results!