The Crafty Cultivator

I may have had a tad too much caffeine coming up with a title like that, but in my brain, Celery is a huge wall that I have decided to try to climb. So why not share my journey here?

Things I’ve learned on all my google/youTube “research”:

• You want light, loose soil to sow the seeds in. (I might have to use actual seed sowing soil for this one and save my peat pellets for my tomatoes and peppers.)
• Celery seed needs light to germinate. Seed goes on top of the soil and doesn’t get covered. I typically sow my peppers this same way, but those seeds aren’t tiny… which is point number 3…
• Celery seed is TINY
• It takes a long time to germinate.
• Even moisture. Don’t let it dry out, and obviously, don’t let it be soggy.
• Days to Maturity on my seed packet of “Utah Tall” is 100 days. This means I am tickling the whole length of our average days that are frost free.

So given that whole “long time to germinate” part, and the 100 days to maturity (which  is from putting the plants out in their final home, NOT including the seedling stage)… I decided to start my celery EARLY. I sowed them in little plugs on January 17th. I know they will need to be potted up. Possibly more than once, but we’ll cross that bridge when we get there.

I sowed the seeds into seed starting soil and I added some extra perlite to keep the soil loose and light for the tiny little celery roots. Then I have them in my little mini greenhouse light situation.

To my surprise, they have all sprouted and today is only January 25. I was anticipating them taking much much longer which is why I started them early. I am a little concerned about how to keep them going until its spring outside, so I might have to get creative with them. Or re-sow again later in February… We’ll see how it goes.

UPDATE: I forgot to finish writing this post so here we are. Its February 19th. I did have the little seedlings too far away from the light, so they got a little bit leggy, but not too bad. I moved them up closer to the light since I can’t move the light down to them, and that did the trick. Also, I definitely over sowed them, and so I’ve thinned them a bit. I was apprehensive to thin them down to just one, so I just took out the weaker ones, and I’ll revisit in a bit. If I didn’t mention it earlier, Celery seed is TINY.

I do still have plans to make some kind of self-watering container to keep these from drying out, but we will cross that bridge when we get there.

I know it is the 24 of February now, and I am sorry for the major delay in posting this. I was having problems trying to get these sad photos into this post.

A few more updates… I’ve had to lower the seedlings to the bottom of the Dome Greenhouse thing. They are growing like crazy, and I didn’t expect them to be this ambitious.

Next up for these will be potting up. I need to figure out what I am going to move them up into, and then also, where they will be going… I still have so many things to start, and space is at a premium… AND there are many many MANY more days before its safe for them to go out.