2024 Food Garden

Celery will frequently become bitter during warm and hot weather. The best celery is grown in cooler climates. It’s best harvested right before frosty nights set in. Stress can also make it bitter, especially uneven moisture, with dry periods.

Though loving cooler weather (60–75°F, 16–24°C), celery can tolerate some heat for short periods, especially with light shading. Blanching by hilling or paper tubes/wrapping can help improve eating quality. I’d use a combination of brown paper inside, with white paper facing out (cooler). Blanching is unlikely to reduce bitterness in areas where it’s normally hot, above 80°F, 27°C, for long periods.

Despite favoring cool growing, if seedlings are set out when it’s too cold <50°F, 10°C, plants can bolt. It’s recommended that post harvest, celery get chilled quickly, in cold water.

To give some perspective, Michigan produces a lot of celery, as do cooler parts of California (often as a late season/winter crop). If you have long, hot summers where the heat extends into fall, it’s not worth trying. If you’d like to experiment with one of the more heat tolerant types, try Chinese White or Chinese pink. Some overhead shade (about 50%) during the hottest parts of the day may help. Chinese celeries are less fussy, but still require evenly moist, rich soil. Their flavors are stronger and the leaf stems, petioles are thinner. Since celery can tolerate light frosts, it can be harvested after growing in cool-cold conditions.

Celery herb, often marketed as Par-Cel, is likely the most tolerant of heat. One can avoid harvesting until cold weather mellows it, and by picking younger leaves which grew during cool weather. This is a leafy, vs. petiole type, with stronger flavor. I’ve had it overwinter, here in Virginia, which surprised me. For soups, stews and potato & tuna salads, less is needed to impart that celery taste. It looks a lot like the giant Italian parsleys, and is equally mowed by rabbits!

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Rightly so! Gorgeous! There’s nary a blemish on those peppers.

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I hope it’s your last fracture, too. When I was a kid we had this postmodern couch in the living room that sat on a cast iron frame with 8" cast iron legs and was right at the edge of the entrance. I believe all four of us and several of my sister’s and my friends broke toes on that frame. It was the '60s and we were barefoot a lot.
I hope this isn’t considered a threadjack.

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Win some, lose some.

My tree seems quite sad compared to this one on a nearby bike path.

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Bogman, is par-cel a similar to lovage? I’ve been looking into growing that (California Monterey Bay). Difficult to find plants in local nurseries.
Quick internet search says lovage is Levisticum officinale and par-cel is Apium graveolens v. secalinum

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Today’s pick (fall is in the air).

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I’m very fond of Lovage; the peppery-anise-celery-like flavor is very different from Par-Cel. The Latin names you posted are correct. When Lovage flowers, it can get five feet tall or more. I’ve had plants last for several years. Celery herbs are smaller, with thinner petioles, and typically shorter-lived.

Lovage is one of those more obscure herbs, which most people don’t know. That’s likely why one doesn’t see plants offered. Get seeds from a supplier who guarantees germination; the seeds are more perishable than many. If you are significantly sunnier and warmer than, say, Davenport, CA, Lovage may benefit from full sun from the east, morning, and a little shade when it’s hot. If the plants appear to die, be patient; they often rest after flowering and die back in the winter. Figure on spacing them 20-24 inches apart, final spacing. Keep any harvest minimal until the second year. Rich, moist soil is preferred, but with good drainage.

I was hoping to plant Lovage (and a lot more) this spring, but the drought, which began seriously in May, continues. We’ve had one decent rain since. It’s the longest lasting drought in my lifetime, for our area. We hit 100°F, 38°C yesterday, which didn’t help.

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Raccoons?

I think so. I’ve seen possum in the yard too, and squirrels.

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Can anyone ID this squash, growing in a driveway in Paterson, NJ?

Loofah? Bottle Gourd?

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Middle Eastern neighborhood - which is more likely, you think?

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Thank you!

I have grown a pale green zucchini that looks a lot like that. Some gardens in Toronto grow their various summer squashes, including regular zucchini, like that.

It did not look like any zucchini I’ve ever seen (it’s bumpy), but I haven’t seen every zucchini.

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I think it’s probably bottle gourd

Slaoui in Arabic

Hmm. Not very bumpy!

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I agree with you. Loofahs are more ribbed looking.

This is what I purchased last year in Canada.

The foliage looks different from varieties I’ve grown, but here are the possibilities, maybe others:
White flowers indicate Lagenaria siceraria, one of the “Bottle Gourds”.
Yellow flowers are produced by Luffa aegyptiaca, the smooth loofah, and by slender varieties of Benincasa hispida var. chieh-gua, Mo Qua, Fuzzy melon/gourd. If the fruits have a fine fuzz, it’s the latter.
I’ve grown all of these within the past five years and the picture mostly looks like the Smooth, sponge luffa. They are edible when young. If the owners/growers leave the fruits on until they yellow, or later, they’re growing sponges, luffas.

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