Celery (soz, couldn't think of a witty title)

For the past few days I’ve been using this little explanation to illustrate the General Election result to the Commytrots at work. In boxing, when your opponent says he’s going to knock you out in the sixth, but in the end he only manages to beat you on points…..it means you’ve still fucking lost!

Anyhoo, I’m a strong believer that you need to plan your growing and showing to as fine a detail as you can. I have a map of every single bed/border/space in my vegetable garden and each Christmas I will sit back with a drop of the hard stuff and work out which crops I’m going to be growing where, paying attention to things like crop rotation as much as possible so you don’t encourage a build-up of pests that like a particular crop. I invariably drink myself wankered and have to do the whole plan again when I’m sober but that’s by the by. This means when the time comes you know exactly where to plant things and you’re not scratching your head shoehorning things in willy nilly. I’m constantly referring back to the plan and to my diary where I plan all my sowing dates by working back from each show to ensure I sow each crop at the correct time. As a result I currently have several patches of bare ground inviting planting but I know they’re bare for a reason as they are wanted for a crop according to my plans and I’m not tempted to use them for something else. Some crops (such as caulis for which most of the bare plots are waiting) will need more than one sowing. I go even further in my planning and decide which shows I intend to enter, and which classes I want to aim for at those shows. It’s no good planning to go to 10 shows and enter long carrots at every show if you’re not going to be growing enough of that crop for instance, so I fine tune my season so that I know where my priorities lie. I used to try and enter as many classes as I could at as many shows as I could and end up running around like a lunatic so I try to be a bit more focussed these days.

Growing everything I could possibly manage, including some things for the fun classes like heaviest marrows, longest runner beans etc meant I became a jack of all trades and master of none. Ok if you want to be like Harry Ecklethwaite and win most points in show but these days I’m more interested in benching an exhibit as near perfect as I can muster (something that no-one can achieve of course). That entails growing less variety to allow you to concentrate on growing a few crops to a better standard. This was bought home to me about 5 years ago when NVS legend Charlie Maisey saw me running around at RHS Westminster staging all my exhibits and advised me to cut back and grow what I was best at. At the time I semi-ignored his advice but eventually I saw sense and ditched some crops that I’d been struggling with, particularly the time-consuming blanch leeks that I’d had go to seed on me for three seasons running, a common problem with the variety Pendle that I used to grow. Shallots was another that I decided to sideline. Whilst I’d had some success with them previously I was getting more and more fungal problems with them and they were diverting my attention unnecessarily at critical times of the growing season. I still grow them but I don’t fuss over them like I used to.

I now don’t bother growing heavy pumpkins and marrows, or long runner beans as these aren’t for serious growers although I do enjoy visiting the recently revived Giant Veg Championships held at Malvern. It’s really great to see the smiles on the little faces of all those growers that are unable to grow proper veg.

I also gave celery the heave-ho, but have reluctantly succumbed to one last crack at them this season but I’m only growing 16 plants in a couple of beds that are often waterlogged, so I’d figured if any crop would grow well there it would be celery. It also had plenty of dried blood forked into it about 3 weeks before planting as it’s an excellent source of nitrogen. The variety is Evening Star and I planted them all out a couple of weeks ago, fitting a loose collar 10” tall made from damp proof course material. At the time the plants were below the top of the collar but have now poked through the top having been drawn upwards to the light. I’ll be applying another taller loose collar in the next week or so, to do the same thing, but won’t tie it too tightly for now, the idea being to draw the plants upwards whilst achieving bulk.

Celery is one of those classes I have absolutely no chance with at Branch and National level, as there are some phenomenal growers on the circuit, but they can come in handy for the small collections where you need 3 pairs of 20 point veg for instance. I’m thinking specifically of the early autumn show at RHS Westminster where less and less of the top growers are fitting it into their showing calendar sadly. I did manage a very pleasing 3^rd there in 2012 with the best pair of ‘sticks’ I’ve ever staged.

Whilst I’m happy with the progress I have suffered some slug damage despite taking precautions. I’ve always found a carpet of slug pellets only succeeds partly, such is the desire of the snotty little fuckers to get to celery for a nosh up. Therefore I do use Slugclear watered into the heart of the celery as well as a calcium feed at the same watering, although in the past I’ve found this double treatment is also no guarantee of total control, certainly not in my garden. Celery heart rot is not something I’ve suffered personally but once it takes hold your plant is soon rendered useless, and it is reckoned that slugs nibbling on the centre shoots can help to bring heart rot on, so it is important to keep them at bay…or at least try.

Leaf miner can also be a problem on the leaves so a systemic insecticide is needed, otherwise the foliage gets networked by a criss cross of unsightly markings where the grub tunnels between the layers. I’ve had good success with Decis in the past but now use Hallmark when I’m spraying my carrots against carrot fly. An exhibit of celery with no slug damage to the sticks, with fresh, green foliage stands out amongst others with the odd nibble so it is worth going the extra mile.