The celery journey has begun

Back in February, about the time I was planting artichoke seeds, I started some celery seed.  Celery is new for me, and I wanted to see if fresh was worth the work.  I use celery in the kitchen all the time.  Lately the store bought has been showing its road weariness.

Well the seed DID come up, so in April I planted some more and transplanted them into the garden in May.  I now have about 36 celery plants in the garden.  I started them below the level of the lip of my raised beds in a modified trench and have hilled them up with soil as they have become even with the bed.  Then last week I used newspaper to tie up the February stalks as a way of blanching them.

This is all new territory for me.  I have read that old timers used to dig narrow trenches in the fall, put in a layer of sand and then lower the pulled celery plants into the narrow trenches side by side.  The celery would root cellar happily below ground during the winter months and be plucked from its subterranean vault as needed through the winter.