Last week I put collars on my celery to blanch and force it to grow taller.

The variety I am growing is Verde Pascal. I really have very little experience growing celery, but it seems to be going well. I am using rosin paper that has not been dyed. A week ago I used for the most part 9x9 squares and a string to hold them on. Also the little bamboo sticks help them grow straight. Some plants had a little rabbit setback but seem to be recovering. I am watering them every day and they are mulched as well, they grew three inches this week. Yesterday on the taller ones I placed 12 inch collars on them. When you take them off you can pluck off yellowed leaves and side shoots. On the really hot days I am covering them with old bed sheets for shade. I grew them from seed and the were started in early March.

Celery Verde Pascal

I got this seed from Bavicci. I started it in my hotbed about March 1st. I transplanted it in the hotbed about a month ago, and then set it out last week. I grew celery once about 30 years ago, and didn't really have any problems with it. I'm not really sure why it has such a reputation for being difficult to grow. If you don't blanch it it is pretty strongly flavored. I will post some more pictures as summer goes. Hopefully animals will leave it alone. I had an early attack of groundhogs where they ate about 50 plants in three days, and something is rooting and rolling around in my garlic at night.