The Celery Experiment!

We saw an intriguing thing on some blogs we follow and on a few Facebook pages.  People were re-growing food, from the bits one might usually discard.  Now, not much goes to waste here: we compost most of our vegetable matter , even in winter, to provide us with natural fertilizer; we might make vegetable soup stock from good bits; with pigs here all summer anything vegetable becomes a nice treat!  However, the idea of re-growing food seemed just to good to be true; we'd seen it done with celery, the root end of onions and even carrot tops!

We started ours April 1,  by using the cut base of a head of celery.  It was still too cold to plant outside and the sun room was stuffed with vegetables we'd seeded, so I decided to start it in water.  That way, I would also be less likely to forget about it, as I kept the glass by the kitchen sink.  I kept the water level fairly minimal, to avoid rot.  I was surprised at how quickly we had sprouts: in about a week the centre had a couple of wee shoots coming.  The little celery continued to grow and by Day 27 it was looking pretty good: check it out here.  However, things just seemed to fade out after that!  I began using a bit of seaweed fertilizer in the water, since we had it at hand for all our seedlings.  The little celery did put out some roots, finally, but very little new top growth was happening.  By Day 34 the outer rim of the stalks was beginning to decay, shrivelling up and turning brown.

We've had big fun with this project on our Facebook page: lots of comments, questions and people sharing their experience with re-growing their food.  People who planted it seemed to have better luck, so yesterday ours went into a pot on the patio!  By now, the outer, cut stalks are black and soft, with a little bit of white, moldy-looking bits that I believe are really decayed cell-wall material.  We'll see if it bounces back, now that the roots are in soil.  It being planted time here, I think we'll try another directly into a pot!  Have you ever tried to re-grow your food?

Potting Up!

Time to move some of the little seedlings to larger homes.  We generally seed thickly: five rows to a flat, seeds pretty close together in a row.  That means that there's quickly lots of competition for root room, nutrients and light! We're potting up 'California Wonder' sweet peppers today, into the large six-packs, with plenty of root room for each seedling.  This is probably the only time we will pot these up, unless it snows in May.....

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We're using Sunshine Mix #1 - we use it for everything.  We put it in a bucket and moisten it, not dripping but quite damp!  We dump the moist mix onto the six packs, over-filling so that we can move the soil around, ensuring that each cell is full but not compacted.  We use a little wooden dowel sharpened, to work with the plants; a pencil would work well, too.  First, we use the dowel to lift a clump of plants, starting the process of separating the roots.  Always hold the seedlings by the leaves, not the stem!  This is super important: the little, delicate stem is the only way nutrition gets from the roots to the leaves and you absolutely don't want to crush it!  We use the dowel and our fingers to separate each plant, then, we make a hole in the six pack cell to receive the tiny root ball.  Stuff the roots down, firm the soil up gentle and one seedling transplanted!  We always try to match the size of seedlings in a six pack, partly because we may sell some of them and people like uniformity but also so that no one plant is shaded by taller plants from the outset!


Most of our seedlings we make sure to replant the baby at pretty much the same depth it was in its' original soil.  Tomatoes are one of the few plants you can sink in deeper and they will root from the buried stem, creating a hearty, healthy plant!  Most seedlings won't like that and may rot away in the part of the stem buried!  These flats of bell pepper will go into the warmest part of the seed starting unit for a few days, on the bottom shelf right over the heat mats!  This will help them root into their new homes.  Then they will quickly move up and out, under lights on one of the tables.  We also try to water all seedlings by gently soaking the soil, not the plant.  Less moisture on the plants' leaves means less chance of fungal or bacterial blights and blotches.  Humidity is not an issue, so we've never found the need for fans.  We also run our hands over the seedlings regularly, not only for the great fragrance but we've read that it encourages better rooting and sturdier stems - something like a breeze might do in the garden.  One flat of transplants - about five more to go to finish this flat of baby peppers!  Then, there's a second flat of peppers, a flat of assorted herbs and two flats of tomatoes ready to transplant!  It'll be a busy couple of days!