Bunching Celery

When people ask what I'm growing in the garden, I usually forget to mention the celery.  Those three little plants have been in the Pond for maybe six months and I still haven't done anything with them.  I also don't mention the mint that I'm constantly thinning out of the front yard, but there's a whole post on that.

There was more grass growing in the Pond than on my back lawn, so I decided to do some weeding.  I got out the twist ties I normally use to tie up tomatoes when I'm growing them and pulled in the little bushes of celery so I could get under them.

Huge moment of epiphany.  Those bands around the celery in the market are because celery grows wide as a bush!  The farmers have to bind them to make them grow up instead.  I've been waiting since late winter for the magical point at which the plants only grow upward in a tight column.  Somehow, none of the sites I checked when they were seedlings mentioned that.

So really, celery is more of an herb than a vegetable.  We've just decided to use the stalks more and the leaves rarely.  It's like growing cilantro, which also has edible stems.

And at some point, I will start picking some stalks and using them.