Braisin’ Semi-Failure: Celery

Now that my celery is approximately two months old, I thought I’d post an update on how it’s doing. (Here is the first post about it, when it was a mere two or three weeks old.) As you can see, it’s thriving! And by “thriving,” I mean bolting. The other celery that I planted outside (which I fully expected to get eaten by rodents) is in much more of a traditional celery shape—one central nestled stalk formation, no wild shoots reaching for the stars.

I think I know why the squirrels aren’t going for the celery, though. I tried a bit. I was expecting it to be kind of bitter, but I wasn’t expecting quite how amazingly, overwhelmingly bitter it was. I had to spit it out. Commercial celery is covered up for its final few weeks, to tame the bitterness and sweeten the inner stalks and leaves. Mine has been sitting in the sun (the little we get these days) and the wrong pH of soil (I haven’t tested it, but I’m assuming that’s part of the problem).

HOWEVER, I am only counting this as a semi-failure, because both plants are still alive. And even if I can’t eat them, I’m enjoying the dark green foliage.

HOWEVER HOWEVER, what can be counted as a total failure is those wildflowers I tried planting at the beginning of November. A month has nearly passed and I have… a pot of dirt. I guess four and a half years was too long to wait to plant that little card.

R.I.P. Lettuce and Welcome Wildflowers

Farewell to the lettuce scraps I planted in a flowerpot a few weeks ago. Although it had sprouted a few leaves, I think I overwatered and drowned it. It was kind of… squishy… as I removed it from the pot today. So sad!

A few years ago my sister-in-law got me a subscription to Birchbox. In one of the boxes was the card pictured above from Bloomin. I didn’t have anything to plant it in at the time. Well, now I do! According to the instructions on their website, I need to soak the card in water overnight and then plant it in shallow soil. Hopefully they’ll still sprout and grow after four-and-a-half years. It’s a bit out of character for me to be planting a thing I can’t eat, but I think I’ll enjoy a bit of prettiness on my desk next to the celery and scallions (which are both doing marvelously). Again, this assumes that the seeds aren’t totally dead after all this time. Fingers crossed!

Indoor Kitchen Scrap Gardening

I may have jumped the gun on this project a little bit. I assumed that since October hit I would be getting less from my garden (and mostly be preparing to rip it out and say a eulogy over the compost). That’s obviously not the case.

A few weeks ago, I read an article on regrowing kitchen scraps. It sounded fun and easy, so I gave it a try. I have a window that gets very good afternoon sun. From their bottom inch, I have regrown four green onions and have just started on a fifth. These I’ve just been doing in a glass filled with damp paper towels.

My little pots contain celery (the leafy one on the right) and butter lettuce (the one that doesn’t appear to be doing much on the left). The celery I started from a cut down head, maybe 2.5 inches long. I planted another head outside to see if that soil would do better. I hear that squirrels like celery, so I don’t expect it to last very long. And maybe eventually someday the weather will turn cold. Possibly.

The butter lettuce is from one of those “living lettuce heads” which, score, already comes with a root ball and some soil. You can’t see in that photo, and you would have to lean in very close to see in person, but there are a couple tiny little leaves forming.

Do I think I’ll be able to make a salad eventually? Nah. Will I grow enough celery just to serve alongside buffalo chicken wings? Seems iffy. But it’s a fun little project, and I definitely will be able to use the green onions. Plus, I like being able to look over from the couch to my desk and see some greenery. It’s pleasant!