Never throw away a celery base again!

Celery bases recycled.

Somewhere along the line, I read that you can create celery starts from the base of your grocery store bought celery stalks.  What a wonderful idea!  I had bought two organic celery bunches.  The base ends have a bit too much root and fiber for my cooking, so I usually cut them off and compost them. 

I had already started cutting off green onion bases and planting them directly into the ground of my garden.  These onion roots easily restart.  Now, I have a little section of my garden amongst my herbs of green onions that I can harvest anytime and still have onions growing at the same time.  Maybe this bed will start off shooting and I will end up with even more.  All from nothing but an idea that one should look for any way in the garden to keep its resources at the highest use possible.  Taking a vegetable from the garden and eating it is the highest use I can think of.  Throwing the scraps or cuttings in the compost isn't so bad.  At least that plant matter will rot and nourish the garden some enough to grow more veggies for me to eat.  But wait, let's not throw that onion root into the compost when I can replant it and get vegetables to eat directly.  That's keeping the onion resource at its highest productivity.  This is a core permaculture concept.  Maximize your garden.  Minimize your work.  Don't waste energy moving resources.  Relax.  Have a home brew.

So, when I heard I could do the same with celery root cuttings, I was thrilled.  Instead of tossing the celery base into the compost bin, walking it back to the compost, and waiting 6 months for it to downgrade into organic matter for me to wheelbarrow back to the garden and then grow other plants, I took the easier path.  I put the celery bases in a bowl of water on top of my refrigerator.  Two steps to the cupboard for the bowl, a stop at the sink for water and three steps to the refrigerator.  One motion to lift the bowl with the cradled celery roots to the top of the refrigerator, and one equal and opposite motion to remove a bottle of home brew from the refrigerator.

I did check on the bowl every now and then to make sure it had enough water and that the cat didn't play with it.  Along side the celery bowl, I had calendula flowers drying and an the ever disappearing camomile flowers drying for tea.  I don't drink home brew exclusively!

Before long, the center of the celery base will grow a new stalk.  After about a week, tiny white roots will appear outside the base.  It's time to move it out to the garden.  Nobody told me to harden off this plant.  Its not like it's a seedling.  It really is the old celery root that has been brutally chopped off to make my dinner.  I pop the base into a hole of heavily laden organic soil, cover and then I water.  I hope to have two celery plants with minimal effort.

Why does this surprise me so?  I have started potatoes from eye cuttings and even started avocado seeds with toothpicks suspending the seed in water.  Maybe it is because there is no seed involved.  It was trash.  I had made the jump in seeing the trash as recyclable organic matter for my compost, but I had not seen the potential of it as a new plant ready for the garden. Some one had to tell me.  I would love to remember the blog or comment that told me.  I would credit them, I would.  I should have been looking for such opportunities.  I should be a better gardener, a better urban homesteader, a better permaculurist.  But at least the idea sunk in.  Note to self: drink less beer.  A little less.

My new celery plants look great in the garden.  Either the bugs or I will be very happy with them.  I am already happy to have tried a new idea.

I sold my first produce at the market!

Ok, it was a HUGE sale of $2.70.  I listed my extra Borage herb seedlings and sold three, which I lovingly wrapped together in peat pots, tape and my computer printed label. I love the Locally Grown Foods coop here in Little Rock, run by the Arkansas Sustainable Network.  They are a real great bunch of growers and pasture feeding ranchers who allow my little urban farm to contribute in its tiny way.

This week I put up my extra tomato starts, the sage, and my broccoli flowers.  I've had huge sales on each.  WooHoo!.  I'm in Agbusiness!

Mullein pioneers our house pad.

You know you have disturbed the soil when you find a stand of mullein.  Its soft leaves may be called cowboy's toilet paper which sounds common enough, but it is not found on our land, except on the house pad, where we have cleared the forest enough for our house and garden.  There on the edge it grows now, close to the quartz boulder.  I like the flowers.  I have never tried it as a tea, but am curious.  I first saw this plant as a self seeder in a permaculture garden in downtown Houston.  I am happy to see my friend again on our land.  It is a pioneer, creating a new sward on barren soil.

Christi and Izzy walk the site looking for the house.  We are still planning and dreaming.  Thus you see the random walk on the pad as we trace our latest plans.

The second year stalks have filled the sky with seeds, so we will continue to have this flowering plant around for awhile.  At least until the savannah is developed and the grasses compete.  No worries.  There will be space in the garden for it, and if not, the seeds last 100 years in wait for the earth to be disturbed again.