Grow: celery peppermint stick
2025-01-24T12:57:23+11:00
Grow this colourful vegetable to your harvest and you'll have a new flavour to add to your cooking.
Apium graveolens
This is the most eye-catching of the pink-red celery types, with a pink flush at the base of stalks and pink stripes on the stalks. Sow in autumn in the tropics, subtropics and arid areas or late summer and early spring in warm and cold temperate climates. Soak seeds overnight then sow 2mm deep in seed raising mix, in either punnets or biodegradable containers.
How to plant
Plant seedlings in 6–8 weeks, 30 cm apart and harvest outer stalks at the base from 12 weeks onwards. This variety is slow to bolt and can produce for months. Protect from slugs and snails and other pests with protective collars made from plastic plant pots with the base removed. If these are left on till plants mature, they will also blanch the base of plants from green with pink stripes to white with pink stripes. Water regularly and liquid feed fortnightly.
How to use
Leaves and stalks are used for their strong sweet flavour in stir-fries, soups and slow cooked meals.
You’ll find more growing inspiration and expert tips in our Early Autumn 2025 issue (OG 155).
