Ready to Regrow Some Celery Stalks?

What this question's really asking is, are you ready to experience a little garden magic? Because regrowing fresh and delicious food from kitchen scraps is nothing short of magic.

I can't promise that you'll never have to buy celery from the grocery store again. You will, however, get more fresh celery stalks to eat (hey, that's more bang for your buck, right?) and even save celery seeds if you'd like. Whatever the results, this is a fun indoor gardening project that'll teach you a bit more about plants and how they grow.

Follow these super simple steps to regrow celery that you bought from the grocery store.

Here's what you'll need:

1. One bunch of organic celery from the grocery store, preferably with lots of good leaves on it
2. A sharp kitchen knife
3. Glass of water
4. A jar (the lip of the jar should be slightly more narrow than the celery bunch)

Directions to Regrow Celery

Follow these simple steps to turn your kitchen scraps into a free plant.

Step One

Fill the jar with lukewarm water all the way to the top.

Step Two

Using the knife, cut the celery about three inches above the base. You might notice that the center of the celery bunch is much softer and leafier than the outside. This is where the majority of the new growth will occur.

Step Three

Place the celery base in the jar of water. It should rest right on the lip of the jar. You'll want to keep the celery stalks above the water.

Step Four

Place the jar in a windowsill or under grow lights.

Step Five

Get ready for some magic!

Over the next few weeks, you might notice that the outside of the celery plant will dry out and turn brown, while the center starts to regrow. From this center, the base will send up soft, fresh celery stalks. These stalks won't be as hard as the crunchy outer stalks you buy from the store, but you'll still be able to harvest and eat them.

While the plant sends up new stalks and celery leaves, it'll also be growing new celery roots down into the water. The cool thing about these roots is that they're actually strong enough to support this plant if you were to move it out to the garden. Many of the indoor gardening projects that involve kitchen scraps don't actually produce a plant you can continue growing in the garden, but this one does!

As soon as your nighttime temperatures stay above 50 degrees Fahrenheit, you can move your regrown celery base outside to the garden space. Plant it in a nice, rich soil in a raised bed, and it will continue to grow and produce more celery stalks.

Now, the stems will never quite be as tough and fibrous as the stems you bought from the store and would harvest from a celery plant grown from seed, but you'll still get new growth with that crisp celery flavor.

Lessons You'll Learn About How Celery Grows

Regrowing celery like this will not give you tons and tons of celery to eat, but it does teach us a few things about celery.

Number One: Celery takes a long time to grow

Compared to something else we can regrow in water, like romaine lettuce, celery takes a lot longer to grow and the size of the harvests from a regrown plant will be smaller. If you were to grow celery from seed, it would take four to five months to reach maturity. That's almost half a year!

Doing this project will give you a new appreciation for how long those celery stalks at the grocery store took to grow.

Number two: Celery Needs Some Space in the Garden, But Not a Lot

Celery is a medium-size plant. That means it needs four to five inches of space in the garden. If you have one square foot in the garden, you can grow four to six celery plants.

Number Three: Celery is picky about the weather

Celery is in the Apiaciaea plant family (the same family as carrots). These plants generally love cool weather. Celery, however, does not do well with frost and snow. Since celery takes four to five months to grow and prefers cooler temperatures (but not too cold), it can be challenging to grow in many climates.

You typically need to start celery from seed indoors, baby it for several months, and then move it out to the garden. This project is a way to cheat the timeline a bit and produce celery stalks sooner.

Number Four: Garden-Fresh celery tastes so much better

Celery that's just been harvested has so much more flavor than the bland stuff you get from the grocery store. Since celery is like 90 percent water, I feel like I'm just eating chewy water when I eat celery from the store. You'll find that fresh celery actually has a much richer flavor, enough to give this project a try!

Regrowing Your Own Celery Plant Is Making Garden Magic

If you're new to gardening, it's probably best not to grow celery from seed directly in your garden. Like I mentioned before, it can be hard to grow because of its temperature requirements and long growing time to maturity. But if you want to taste a little celery stalk that you've grown yourself, this project is a super simple way to make that happen.

I hope you enjoyed this lesson and are inspired to put some celery on your windowsill and just watch the magic of this plant being alive and regrowing itself.

The celery stalks and leaves that you grow are perfect for the cucumber and celery juice recipe or kale and celery recipe recommended by our garden coach Laura Christine.

There is magic inside of our food, don’t you think? Thanks for helping me bring back the kitchen garden one indoor garden project at a time!