Free celery!

Most people with a modicum of gardening or food knowledge know there are companies out there (Monsanto, et al.) that specifically design strains of produce that can’t re-seed themselves. Not only does this require farmers to keep having to buy these companies’ proprietary seeds year after year, it keeps consumers from being able to take, say, a sprouted potato and plant it in their own garden with successful results. Thankfully, not all produce falls into this category. I once successfully re-planted garlic from Costco (supposedly soft-neck varieties—which is what most commercial brands are—don’t grow as well in the Pacific Northwest, but I didn’t have a problem), and, thanks to this wonderful post by Chickens in the Road, I’ve now successfully regenerated celery using the bottom part I would normally throw into the stock bag. I was a little doubtful at first, especially since this particular celery bottom was old, small, and somewhat desiccated, but sure enough, you can see little stalks starting to emerge in the photo above.

Here’s what it looked like at first, when I simply cut off the celery bottom and put it in a shallow dish of water next to a window.

Then, a few days later, tiny leaves started to emerge.

Once the plant gets a little more established and the frost danger has passed, I’ll plant it outside and hopefully be able to keep it going throughout the summer. (Celery is notoriously finicky, so I plan to put it in a pot so I can move it around.)

I’ll post updates as they occur.