CELERY-HOW TO GROW IT GOOD.

Globe, Volume XXIII, Issue 2242, 5 May 1881, Page 4

CELERY-HOW TO GROW IT GOOD.

Thoro is no excuse for not having celery much better than we usually see it. To have a first-class article it requires (as some of the Northern people nay) “ a good deal ot elbowgrease,” or labour and attention. But what’s the use of growing anything if wo don’t grow it to its best state. Celery should never bo dry from the day tho seed is sown, to the time to get it for eating. It is a marsh plant, and a very gross feeder, and any amount of good old rotten manure suits it. The Lancashire operatives are aomo of tho best growers of this esculent, and they grow it to a very large size and as tender as it is possible to be with them. sowing ins SEED. The place to sow in open ground is best if somewhat shaded, but this should not bo under trees, for tree roots would bo apt to take the nourishment that tho young seeding celery should get. In preparing a bod tor seed, it can bo done two ways. Tho handiest is to spread some well-rotted manure where it is desired to sow, and lightly fork it over, so as to mil it well with tho soil ; two inches deep is enough. Tho boat way is fo make a compost of good soil, old well-vetted manure, laof mould, or old spent hops, in equal portions, and put the compost into handy boxes about three inches deep, packing it down well, and the surface of either a bed or tho soil in tho boxes should be flattened down before the seed is sown. Celery seed is small, and should not have more than one-fourth of an inch of soil put over it. A piece of old carpet or muslin spread over the seed is pood to keep it from drying out at a critical time, just when it is germinating, and may bo kept on until the plants are well up. The seed can be worked in tho soil by rubbing with the hand or a piece of lath, but in any case the seed should bo made to feel the soil, as it were, not leaving the soil too loose. This is important in any seed sowing. If celery is sown in a hot-bod it takes great attention to keep the frames from getting too hot and dry, for it don’t like either. When the young plants have throe or four loaves they should bo what gardeners call pricked out two oc three inches apart in ns good stuff as they wore raised in. Here they can remain until they are planted out to grow for the table. [The Lancashire growers plant them out three or four times, each time a little further apart, hut it is done to grow tho plants as large as it is possible. Anyone growing one or two hundred ought not to rest satisfied with less than throe or four pound “ sticks,” and these can bo got it tho plants get a fair chance. Celery to bo grown well should always be near water, and tho slops from the house are just tho thing to run along the rows, two or three limes a week. Lot mo say hero that those who throw away any water with soap in it, waste what would make most plants grow good, PLANTING CELEB? OUT. Those who want large celery must not bo too niggardly about manure nor put the plants too near each other in the rows. Eight or nine inches apart will grow large plants jf supplied with plenty of both liquid and solid manure. Good celery can bo grown planted much nearer each other. The old plan is to make a trench six or eight inches deep and fill in throe or four inches with good compost or very old manure, and then put the plants up tho middle of these. The trench system is a good one, as the plants or manure don’t get so dry or need so much watering as if they had been planted on the level ground, though thousands of acres are grown on tho level. Tho trench plan is good for a crop of peas tho year after celery, and in private places it is a good plan to put tho rows so far apart that a row of peas or maize can be run in, and make the rows east and west. The peas or maize would give tho celery tho needful shade in our hot suns. There is no difficulty in growing celery in this climate if we give it fair play, but we should bear in mind that its native place is a marsh. When the plants get six or eight inches high is a good time to begin and scatter a little soft coal soot on tho plants after rain or on dewy mornings. If this is done three or four times during their growth, they will seldom be troubled with canker or insects. Celery loves mulching, and, when the plants are from eight to twelve inches high, a good mulch on each side a row helps them along, and it may be put on them three or four inches thick ; then if water or liquid manure is poured through tho mulch to the roots they will pay for tho trouble. In planting celery it is good to let the roots spread horizontally as much as possible ; but if they have been handled right in pricking out it is rarely they need much fussing with the roots afterwards. To blanch the celery afler it has grown all that is desired, the plants, if large, should have tho atoms tied up closer together, with any old strips of rags or something that will not cut them, then the soil should bo thrown up each side of the plants, and if a little sawdust is handy a good-sized flower-pot full, put into tho centre or heart of each plant, will exclude tho light and not crowd the heart too much, as heavy soil will sometimes do. Tho writer has tried many things for blanching celery, but nothing is cleaner, or more effectual than sawdust; it takes from three to five weeks to blanch celery, a good deal depending on fho sorts of celery. There ara many varieties, but the white sorts have taken the lead on account of being easier to blanch. The red sorts take a little longer, but anyone who has had well-blanched rad and pink varieties, almost invariably give them tho preference ; and Peter Henderson has lately come out for the red sorts. They are moat grown for the tables of tho aristocracy of Europe, Our seedsmen’s catalogues give us yet some ood old pink and red sorts. Bosamo pink is a good old medium-sized sort, and when well grown is fit for any palate. Celery is one our beet salads, and its medicinal properties are tonic, carminative, and very strongly diuretic, so that it ought to bo grown more extensively. No form garden should be without it