CELERY

Wairarapa Times-Age, 20 October 1939, Page 3

CELERY

GROWS WILD IN ENGLAND. Celery is a native of England, where its is found growing wild in ditches and damp places. It is one of the most wholesome and important of all vegetables, and is valuable for seasoning, and can be eaten raw or cooked. It is mainly a winter vegetable, and, as it likes both abundance of manure and moisture, is usually planted in trenches.. For early supplies, seed is sown in pans, and the seedlings are pricked out and grown on like bedding plants. Seed sown during this month will provide plants for the main crop, though a sowing is sometimes made in the open later on. The seedlings should be pricked out in boxes or a specially-manured bed, and when well grown they are put out in trenches, which should be prepared now. When pricked out in boxes there should be about two inches of well--rotted manure in the bottom. Trenches for a double row are 18 to 20 inches wide, and the soil should be thrownout to a depth of 12 inches, the bottom of the trench being broken up with a fork. Put in nine inches of half-rotted manure, and on this place three inches of the fine soil thrown out. This will bring the surface up to the original soil level, which is satisfactory. The plants are put out at 12 inches apart in the rows. Earthing up to secure blanching need not be done until the

r plants are about full grown, the time taken to secure this being six to eight weeks. For the earliest crop, Golden Self Blanching can be planted, and for the main crop Solid White or Giant Red. c r