Why does my celery taste bitter?
I was recently asked this question by a gardener.
Celery is an attractive, easy to grow plant that makes a great filler plant in any vegetable or herb garden.
Celery
However if you want to grow great celery, that you can eat, there are a few things you need to know!
These include:
- Celery needs a lot of water. If you don’t give your celery enough water you will end up with stringy celery and that is not nice to eat.
- Celery doesn’t like getting too much sun. This is why commercial growers mound up the soil around the celery bunches or wrap the celery in cardboard tubes. This helps to “blanch” the celery, which keeps it pale in colour, but also stops the celery tasting bitter.
- Celery needs lots of fertiliser and compost otherwise you will end up with thin wiry stalks that can be tough to eat.
- Celery is an annual and it will grow bitter towards the end of the plant’s life when the stalks are more mature.
Therefore, it is worth following these simple rules when growing your own celery.
Celery
Not just because your celery will taste better. Because celery is REALLY good for you!
It contains lots of vitamins and minerals, including Vitamin K which is essential for blood clotting.
Celery is also full of antioxidants. And it contains so few calories that you probably use up more energy digesting celery than you take in in calories.
Happy gardening from Rohanne, Your Personal Garden Expert 🙂
