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Millymollymandy wrote:My celery is now about 6-8 inches high with teeny little stems. What's the trick of getting it to full size in one season?

Sow early, mine was sown in January, and look after them. Mine are about 2 feet tall and just getting usable sized stems.
If you remember, wild celery grows in swampy places and ditches, so they need lots of water, which may well be the problem with yours.
The trouble is that when they are short of water, they don't wilt but just slow down until it rains again.

It's not too late for yours, but I would give them a dose of liquid fertiliser, keep the soil damp and you might be surprised how quickly they can grow.

I have watered them every single day religiously since I planted them beginning of May. They get loads of water. I shouldn't have to sow in Jan as the packet says to sow in May/June in situ. Anyway I have 2-3 more months before harvest time according to the packet! I just thought they might have got a bit bigger by now given they are called Golden GIANT Improved.

Edit: I'll try some liquid feed on them though, can't hurt (just saw your edit).

Millymollymandy wrote:I shouldn't have to sow in Jan as the packet says to sow in May/June in situ.

Ah well, that's the problem then as far as I'm concerned.
IMO, celery needs a long growing season and I certainly wouldn't trust sowing direct in the garden for all sorts of reasons. It's not the easiest seed to get to germinate and mine would get browsed off as soon as the first leaf appeared.
Good luck and you may well get some decent sized stems before the first frost.

We'll see, after all it was just an experiment anyway and fun to try new things. Everyone says they're hard to grow but then someone on a Brittany forum says she just chucked seed in last year, never watered, never blanched and got lovely celery!

We've just cropped all the apples off our tree, and I've got 3 big carrier bags full sitting in the kitchen waiting to be dealt with, plus we've got 20 tubs of stewed apple in the freezer, we used some in beetroot chutney, and more in damson and apple jam, and we gave 2 big carrier bags to a friend. Been a smashing crop this year.

Will use some in elderberry jelly and bramble jelly, once we've been picking!

Nix

we've picked lots of apples too - early but they are ready.

have freezer crisis.. so daren't fill with apples. hope they keep for a while anyway

Have freezer crisis too esp as free range chickens are on really good promo this week so need to go to supermarket and buy as many as possible (we do this 2-3 times a year).

OH is itching to try one of our apples and I've told him NO! You have to eat the fruit that won't keep like these ripe pears, and plums, and peaches, and raspberries......

Corn on the cob for dinner last night, to me that's the 2nd best thing to come out of the veg patch after PSB. Yum!

Hiya, we had our first broccoli's on sunday with our roast, was very tasty! Also radish pods and going to harvest our beetroots at the begining of next week :-) Hopefully will have some chiili's soon, they are sooo close. Oh and black cherries off the tree at the back of the house soon!

my corn on the cob is not ready yet.. nearly.. but we are buried under baby corn - mini pop - i have nto found it freezes at all well, so we have to eat loads now. oh dear!

picked lots of victoria plums too. and cabbage is featuring heavily on the menu :)

I harvested my first ever carrots!

We even had what my daughter called the "Love Carrots"! I've never seen carrots getting jiggy before! ( i hope i've attached a photo - but struggling to master this)

SusieGee wrote:

red wrote: picked lots of victoria plums too. and cabbage is featuring heavily on the menu :)

Oh dear, I can't help but think that may be a rather volatile combination

oooh I hadn't realised what that smiley was until I saw it's name written above but was just going to say that plums, beetroot and sweetcorn isn't a bad combination right now either!!! No probs being regular!!!

SusieGee wrote:I love it when they do that well done. My carrots are good for the first time in six years this year - haven't a clue what I did differently

The carrot flies are in your house my dear instead of on your carrots?

First year I haven't grown any and keep feeling bad about buying them - yet it's so much easier to peel one that isn't full of black bits that need cutting out.

Harvested my first three toms the other day: one smallish 'purple Ukrain', and two 'Tigerella'. Some of my plants have got blight, but it hasn't reached the fruit yet, and I think I've stopped it in its tracks for now with a heavy spraying with Bordeaux mixture. Hopefully, I can harvest all the toms before the blight gets to them. The Purple Ukraines are all badly split, no doubt due to the soaking summer, but none of the others are. The others are 'Costoluto Fiorentino', 'Tigerella', and 'Golden Sunrise'. Presumably P.U. is particularly prone to splitting.

I like this thread, it makes you realise jsut how productive your garden actually is.

We are harvesting:
cucumbers
tomatoes (at long last)
sweetcorn (it is amazing!)
courgettes
squash (of varying types - 8 ball, sweet curd squash etc)
runner beans/flat beans/purple french beans
onions (white/red)
beetroot
carrots (but we just aren't getting through them fast enough)
potatoes (varying types - Golden Wonder just coming into season)
salad leaves
kale (if we wanted it - I don't just yet)
pointed cabbage
spinach
flat leaf parsley/chives/oregano
eggs and pork and chicken

Coming soon...

parsnips
more late strawbs
rasps

I love how we are hardly having to buy anything at all this month - our shopping budget is just £100 - basically oil, coffee, tea bags, seasoning and cleaning products etc. Oh and cheese/butter. Now for that cow.....

The only thing we can add to Bonniethomas's list are melons (but no chicken or pork - no go on the allotment) but what frightens me is that the signs of approaching winter are already there, the french beans are coming to an end, the pumpkins are giving up, even some of the butternuts are stopping despite only being small.