Trying An Experiment Growing Celery Ends In Water

Thursday, February 21st, 2013 at 8:51 am

Recently I joined Pinterest and I’ve been really enjoying sharing pictures of my home gardening fun but I also love the idea I can look for images which can lead me to learning new things. Like I did just a few days ago.

I saw someone trying to grow a new celery plant from the end of the celery we usually toss in the compost bin in the backyard. They had just put it in water and it started to grow.

Well the first thing I thought was that I had already seen this happen, without any water at all. The celery has enough residual water to allow the tender leaves in the center to start growing. It doesn’t mean that it will grow a new plant that easily. So I had to know for my self and have started an experiment with two root ends of store bought celery.

The first thing I did was look through some related gardening videos on Youtube trying to find a video that went from start to finish with positive results. Couldn’t find one that convinced me and it’s why I have to try this one myself.

First Day: Saved The Root End of Our Celery

I started by saving the root end of the celery. I kept about two inches of stalk as well. This will help keep moisture in until it’s absorbing water.

Because we had broken off pieces of stalk to eat before I started this experiment I decided to clean up the root end and remove the pieces left over as they tend to get slimy when placed in water.

While checking online for info about rooting celery I learned that some places add wax to the end so it doesn’t start to rot. This may interfere with root growth so I cleaned it off thoroughly and cut a few slits in the end just in case I didn’t get all the wax. This should help the roots get started.

Third Day: Seeing Plenty Of Green Leaves.

Even though I see all this new growth I keep reminding myself I’ve seen this happen without any water, like I mention at the beginning.

It would last a few days to a week and still look healthy without the water. I am expecting the water to keep it wet enough that it has time to start rooting before dying.

Every couple of days I will check the water level to be sure I don’t let it go dry and ruin my experiment. If the roots start growing I will immediately place it in some healthy soil and see if it will continue to grow.

I wanted to test this with a similar root end but without water to show that it will grow new leaves as long as there is moister left in the stalks.

So the yogurt container on the left has no water in it and I just started that one today. The one on the right is the one I started three days ago and has water in the container.

I will follow the progress until it either dies or grows roots. From there I will follow the progress while it’s growing in soil. So watch for more as the celery experiment continues over the next few weeks.