Freshly picked celery
Chinese celery has a delicious strong flavour
A young celery plant before blanching
Delicious crunchy celery (Apium graveolens var. dulce) is a delightful, useful cool season plant that is sometimes tricky to grow. This shouldn’t stop you from giving it a go because commercial non-organic celery has one of the highest pesticide spray residues of any vegetable. At the very least you can grow soup or Asian celery (A. graveolens), which is used mainly for its leaves and narrow stems. It is not crisp or sweet but has a great strong celery flavour, perfect for soups, stews and stir-fries. It is also easy to grow and needs less water.
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Organic Gardener’s Essential Guide: Vegies A – Z
Rising costs have combined with anxiety about food security to create a critical moment for people considering growing their own food. Right on cue is “Vegies A-Z”. It’s the third OG special (after Getting Started, $10.00, and Fruit, $10.00). Vegies A-Z combines new material with recent OG articles from reliable writers. My quibble with this third volume is that there is not more on soil preparation, which is crucial. Perhaps that’s in Getting Started? Perhaps the three volumes need to be read seriatum, and would make a great gift, possibly to yourself. PW is a major contributor. — AMS.
Note: There is more on soil preparation in Getting Started which is unfortunately currently out of print. A reprint is planned for later this year
Borrow a copy from your library, buy one from your local newsagent or go to the store on this website and buy a copy online
