Yes, I’m going to order GTS celery seed for 2025. I have also purchased some Redventure celery seed from another supplier. My 2024 crop was mostly green, but also a few hot pink, and a few purple.
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Now that the snow has melted, I can see how my celery plants survived last month’s cold temperatures which hit the low end of the temperatures for zone 5b. (The 2023 USDA update shifted us to zone 6a, but here we are, just 2 winters after the update, actually still in 5b, not 6a–but I digress).
But about the celery. Wow! Look how much survived, with no cover, except snow! The GTS seed had a much better survival rate than the 2 cultivars. In particular, the GTS celery with the dark purple stems seems like every single plant survived, because now MANY of my survivors are that color, whereas green stems the overwhelming color majority of the GTS seed before winter’s destruction. And the 2 cultivars were green stemmed too. (The 2 plants at the bottom of the close up photo are what I mean by “dark purple stems”–maybe it’s technically “red” like how “red cabbage” looks purple? There’s also some surviving lettuce.) Also I have 2 hot pink GTS plants that survived, but I didn’t have many hot pink plants to begin with–maybe 3 or 4, I don’t remember. Thanks @Kimzy for sharing your seed! It really performed! Today I counted 55 surviving celery plants, the majority of which were from GTS seed. Of course winter isn’t over yet, but I feel optimistic that I should have some celery seed production later this year.
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Nice! So very glad to see the surviving plants looking alive and growing leaves. Yes, the purple stem is considered red even though its not totally saturated with the color. Its amazing what gets selected for in different growing areas. My soil selects heavy for the pink stem, but its celery and has super fragrant aroma and taste. My perennial patch of 3 years was destroyed last season by extreme heat, yeilding very little seed, that fell onto the ground. Then we had a tree cut down and the arborist raked up the tree branches and took the topsoil layer… that might have had any celery seed. BUT, I did notice three celery plants come up, one pink and two red, so my fingers crossed the three surviving plants throw seed. Surely many of your plants with throw seed. It just takes the warm weather and longer days. Im curious to know what those conditions are for your growing area. Share photographs when the flower spikes start to form. I dont collect the seed until after the spike has flowered and dried…then cut the stem and place in a clean dry pail, dont panic if they get rained on, just be sure to dry them after by hanging. Seeds will fall off everywhere, they are small, hence the volunteers have taken over my garden. Im thinking the seeds get good endophytic coverage by sitting on the ground until the next season. So its a win win, saved seeds and volunteers.
So very glad for your update! Great adaptive garden growing!
We are already having warm temperatures, 80’s during the day and 50’s at night.
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Our summers average 70’s during the day, and 50’s at night. Usually only a handful of days that hit or exceed 80 degrees. Last summer was different however, with many days over 80 degrees. Also we generally get a lot of rainfall, but again, last summer was much drier than typical.
My celery is under a rowcover with a layer of leaves on top. During January, we had some sub-zero temperatures. Now it it has been unseasonably warm for two weeks (it got into the 70s) but cold weather is on the way again. I peaked under the row-cover, and it looks like the celery is still alive.
For the next couple of months, the trick will actually be keeping it cool so it doesn’t start regrowing too fast. Last year I lost all my celery plants in the spring; they overwintered fine, but during every warm spell they would start growing only to be frozen back again. (Our springs are very erratic.) After repeatedly being frozen back, they eventually died off. I’m hoping that by leaving the mulch in place they will remain cool through March and save their energy for more stable weather.
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Gosh, sounds like a plan. Im fighting the heat all the time as you spar with the cold. Im also curious to see what stem colors made it thru the cold. Thanks for the update and glad you still have live celery.