Page:How and what to grow in a kitchen garden of one acre (IA howwhattogrowin00darl).pdf/88

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
82
A KITCHEN GARDEN

planted. I know of none that can equal it in appearance or quality; the stalks are large, straight, crisp and very solid; it is very vigorous in growth, attaining a height of one to one and a half feet, and I have had single plants of three inches in diameter. The leaves of this variety are of a beautiful golden yellow after the plant has been bleached, which adds greatly to its handsome appearance when prepared for the table. The young plants should be earthed up as soon as they are large enough to handle, and in two weeks the celery will be in the finest order for the table, thus gaining from one to two months over the ordinary kinds. The quality is the finest and the stalks are crisp, brittle and delicious.

White Plume.—This is also a self-blanching variety, but not to the same extent as the preceding kind. In this sort the inside stalks are naturally white, and the leaves of these white stalks are variegated in the most striking and beautiful manner, which gives it the name and renders it the most ornamental variety grown. To bleach the outer stalks the plant should be kept earthed up, and it will then be ready for use at any time. It is not, however, so fine in the small state as the Golden Self-Blanching, which is of fine eating quality even when growing in the seed bed; the stalks are not so thick and meaty in the White Plume, but have a strong “nutty” flavor.

Crimson Or Red Celery.—The red celery is very handsome and fine flavored when bleached, and after the self-blanching varieties is the most desirable one to grow. It grows tall and straight, is crisp and