Content of the article:
Vegetables grown with their own hands are always tastier, and certainly much more useful than the fruits that are bought in the store. This also applies to root celery. In order to get large juicy "roots", gardeners use seedlings, and rightly so. Celery obtained with seedlings grows up to 3 kg in weight, while other methods do not give such a result.
Nuances of growing seedlings
One of the highlights of the cultivation of root celery is to comply with the timing of seedlings in open ground. The fact is that this root crop has a long ripening period - from 120 to 200 days. Therefore, to obtain seedlings using only the early varieties of celery.
Fresh seed should be sown on seedlings, not older than one year. It is advisable to harvest them yourself from fruits weighing at least 500 g.
Seeds are sown in early February so that the seedlings have time to grow by the end of April.
Preparation of the plot
Place under the celery root in the garden should be prepared in the autumn. It should be no drafts, shady areas should be avoided. Celery root requires good sunshine.
Lean soil is fertilized with rotted manure( 7 kg per 1 sq. M.) And superphosphate( 10 g per 1 sq. M.).With the arrival of spring, nitrogen, potash and manganese fertilizers are also applied at the rate of 5 g, 5 g and 2 g per 1 square meter.m. respectively. Then they dig it up.
Terms of disembarkation of
Seedlings of root celery will be ready for transplanting to the bed, when they reach a height of 10 cm, and will form at least 5 true leaves. The ideal time for planting seedlings - the beginning of May. If the spring is a little late, you can wait for the numbers to 15, so that the soil warms up and the threat of night frosts recedes. The landing is done in the morning, preferably in cloudy weather.
Experienced gardeners recommend for the first time to cover each seedling with a trimmed plastic bottle. This will save seedlings from a sudden change in temperature at night.
Transplantation of celery seedlings into the ground and further care.
Seedlings are planted in small holes with a depth of 10 cm. The distance between the bushes should be 40 cm, and the width between the rows - 60 cm. Water the holes beforehand.
When planting, it is impossible to deepen the growth point, so that the fruits do not have a lot of lateral roots, which leads to slower growth and deterioration of taste.
Seedlings of root celery should be watered regularly, loosened the ground and weeds removed. The first fertilizing with complex mineral fertilizer is done 10 days later, the second - 5 weeks after transplantation.
In order for the fruits to grow large, in July each bush is slightly dug out and the lateral roots are pruned. A couple of days of planting is left in this position to dry out the cut, and then back sprinkled with earth.
