So much celery!

Celery, October 2017

Pickings are getting thinner and thinner...to complete my full five months of not buying veg (less than a month to go now), I've said to the husband that we'll be eating a lot of celery until then.  Probably past then, too--potatoes and celery are what we still have plenty of.  The only problem is the husband doesn't really eat potatoes because they're bad for his blood sugar levels (he's diabetic).  So the seven year old and I have been filling up on them while he's been choking down the celery.

Actually it's quite tasty, variety Giant Soup Red (I think).  It really is giant!  Some of the stalks have been burrowed into by bugs--I think maybe the slugs have put holes in them, but have found both woodlice and earwigs inside:  not what you want to discover in your soup.  Ants on a Log?  No thanks.  We're still eating at, after it's been thoroughly soaked and washed--I split it down the middle and scrub it with a brush.

I think technically they should be blanched, and I did get the husband to pile up soil to about a third of their height, but these plants are huge:  just about waist high, and they were planted into a trench about 20 cm deep.  I can't imagine being able to fully blanch these, at least not with soil. 

Back in May, when I planted them out, I put about 18 in a grid shape, but the remaining 18 or so got planted without spacing out--just in a big mat, the same as they were growing in the tray.  It's these I'm picking first, stalk by stalk, rather than full heads.  I'm saving the bigger ones (though not bigger by much, to be honest) till these ones are finished.  I've been cooking them as a main ingredient in stews, and also braised in broth as a side dish;  the flavor is excellent, and not too strong.  I'm also drying the leaves and will make a batch of celery salt once I have a good bunch of them.

Incidently, there's a very productive dahlia growing right in front of the celery patch;  I thought I'd dug it out last autumn, but it's still there, and throwing out dozens of purple and white heads still, even at the end of October.  I guess it's benefited from the extra chicken manure I laid down for the celery.