Growing Celery For Free, Easily

As much as I would like to say that I'm a terrific gardener, I'm really not. Whenever I try to start plants from seeds, at least half the time, the seeds never sprout, or I kill the plant before it reaches the fruiting stage...
And this makes me sad.
Because I'd like to be able to grow as many things as possible of my own, to eventually have my own homestead one day, but if I can't succeed at the growing stuff...
There are some things, though, that I have more success with than others. Sprouts, for one. And keeping a plant alive that already is alive. Like the basil plant my husband got me. Or giving kitchen scraps a new lease at life. Like those scallion roots which I planted, and now use as my source of green onions on a regular basis by just trimming them as needed.

This idea has been floating around the blogosphere, I don't know the source, but I first read about it on the blog 17 Apart. You grow a celery plant from the base of a celery that you bought in the store, like this.

Now, if you were thinking the same thing that I was thinking when I first heard this, you might say "I can't do that- my celery doesn't have roots attached at the bottom- it's just bluntly chopped off". But let me reassure you, absolutely no roots necessary for this, just your plain ol celery from the grocery store.


To grow your own celery, just follow these simple instructions:
1. Chop off the base of the celery, leaving a bit of stalk. I left a bit too much stalk, better cut it a bit shorter than this.



2. Put your celery in a container, upright, with just an inch or so of water.

3. Every day or other day, pour out the water, and put in new water. (This is so your celery doesn't rot.)

This is what my celery looked like after only one day- yes, already new leaves popping up! I assume that if its not as hot where you are as it is where I am, it might grow a drop less quickly, but who knows...

4. Keep on changing the water daily for a week, or even two.

This is what mine looked like after 2 weeks. Yes, it took only 2 weeks to grow that much!

You'll notice that the outside celery stalks are starting to dry up a little bit. That's totally fine!

See the roots that grew out of the bottom of my celery in just 2 weeks? There were absolutely no roots before.

5. Bury your celery in dirt, either in a pot or directly into your garden. Ideally cover the top of the dried out parts of stalk. I would have done that, only I didn't have enough dirt in my pot to cover it entirely.

6. Water the celery daily, or even more than once a day if its very dry and you live in a place where things evaporate quickly.

7. This is what my celery looks like now about a month after planting. Nearly ready to harvest my first bit of leaves!

See? Easy as pie!

P.S. In case you think you can't do this with a brown plumb, when I went away on vacation, I forgot to arrange for someone to water my plants and change the water in the celery pot. The water all dried up and the celery started shriveling up and it came right back to life. See? It's magical!

Now I'll hopefully never need to buy celery again, something especially good because celery is one of those veggies that I never, ever, ever find on sale!

Have you seen this trick before? Have you done it? How did it work for you? If you haven't done it yet, does this look like something you'd try?
Anything you've grown from kitchen scraps before? (No, I'm not talking about mold. ;) )
In general, do you have a green thumb or are you a less successful gardener?

Linking up to Monday Mania