There are many reasons to regrow food from vegetable scraps, it’s environmentally friendly, economically viable, it gets kids interested, and it’s fun. It’s also really simple to do, see plants just want to grow and we can use that to our advantage. So read on to find out how to grow celery from scraps.
What You Need To Grow Celery From Scraps
- A head of celery, organic if possible but this will work with non organic.
- A container that is water tight.
- A sunny windowsill.
- Patience.
How To Grow Celery From Scraps
When using your celery cut it leaving a couple of inches attached to the base (as shown in the picture). Once you’ve used it all, place the remains into a container filled with about 2 inches of water. Sit the celery straight into the container and replace the water daily.
Place in a warm, sunlit place and wait. You’ll be surprised at just how quickly you’ll see results.
What Happens Next
Nature will take over from here, and start to produce new growth from the cut top and roots from the base. It’s the way of nature that plants reproduce, either by setting seed, or by root division. What you’re doing here is giving the celery scrap a second chance at growing.
As long as conditions are favourable, and the plant has water, warmth, and sunlight it will regrow. After just 5 days you will see new shoots emerging from the top of the celery cutting.
After 12 Days
Check the celery scrap daily for root growth, in my case it took 12 days for enough roots to emerge. Do keep checking though, because one day there weren’t any roots, and the next they were there. They are thin and white so they are not so easy to spot, but once you do it’s time for the final stage.
Just to reiterate the celery took 12 days from first placing in water to getting enough roots to plant in soil.
Growing On
Once the roots are formed gently place the rooted end of the celery into some soil either a pot or straight into the ground. Remember when positioning the new celery plant that celery was originally a marshland plant. This means that celery will need more water than many other plants and will need to be sited accordingly.
Not giving celery enough water is the #1 reason why the stalks are tough, so be generous with watering. Celery is also a hungry plant and will need plenty of nutrients so it’s best to add compost or well rotted manure to the soil. This will also help with water retention as will providing partial shade.
That said, celery prefers around 6 hours of sunlight per day and will keep growing until temperatures drop below 10C (50F). Celery is very sensitive to temperature so to lengthen the season you can try growing in a greenhouse or covering with a cloche. To find out about companion planting celery what to grow with celery click this link.
How To Grow Celery From Scraps Summary
Here’s a short video to summarise how to grow celery from scraps.
