Root celery - growing from seeds

As the legend says, Aphrodite herself owes her beauty and eternal youth to the daily consumption of celery roots in food. And let this is just one of the myths, but under the ordinary shell of celery is hidden the real treasury of various utilities: vitamins, trace elements. So, in our garden, this vegetable should be! Features of growing root celery from seeds and will be devoted to our today's article.

Secrets of growing root celery

Before starting the planting works, it's not at all superfluous to learn about some of the features of this plant:

1. Root celery refers to plants with a long maturation period. On average, the harvest takes four months to six months. Therefore, early and ultra-early varieties should be selected for cultivation.
2. Seeds of celery (as, indeed, and its closest relatives - carrots and parsley) are extremely capricious: badly grow and quickly lose their germination. Therefore, before sowing, they must be soaked for several days in warm water, or even better - pre-germinate on a piece of moist matter.
3. When the first shoots from the seeds of the root celery are planted, they can be planted in boxes to grow seedlings. The best period for this is in the second half of February - early March.
4. The land for sowing seedlings of celery must be prepared according to the following recipe: 6 parts of peat mixed with 2 parts of humus, and then add one part of the mullein and sod land.
5. To plant the germinated seeds in boxes it is necessary according to the scheme 2 * 2 cm, making small holes in the soil surface with a match or toothpick. After sowing, the soil surface is moistened from the spray gun, and then covered with a film and sent to a dark warm place. As the drying, the ground is periodically moistened, and then covered again. If all the rules are followed, in a week's time, friendly shoots will appear from the ground.
6. After emergence of seedling boxes with celery seedlings are rearranged to a cool and well-lit place, for example, on a window sill. The optimum temperature for seedling growth will be a mark of +16 ... +18 degrees. The first time that sprouts are very fragile and thin, their watering should also be carried out by spraying.
7. When two real leaves appear on the sprouts, the seedlings can be spiked on separate pots, not forgetting to shorten the main spine one third.
8. The beds for celery begin to be prepared in the autumn, carefully digging it and selecting all the weeds while adding organic and mineral fertilizers.
9. Planted in the open ground seedlings should not be earlier than mid-May, when the weather will be more stable and there will be no threat of frost. The most important thing in the transplantation is to keep a distance of at least 30 cm between plants. Do not plant celery on a garden bed in hot sunny weather, as there is a high risk that it not get accustomed. It is best to choose for this an overcast or even rainy day. In any case, after planting, the bed should be well watered.
10. Care for growing celery consists of abundant regular watering, periodic loosening of the soil and fourfold fertilization of the soil. But it is highly discouraged to hunt celery. Moreover, as its root grows in size, experienced gardeners recommend raking away excess land from it. The lateral roots found during the raking of excess land should be carefully removed so that they do not interfere with the development of the main root.