Companion planting

You may remember 2 weeks ago I mentioned how we successfully grew a row of carrots down the middle of the sprouts bed and how that felt like a bonus crop - that's what we've been putting in the boxes recently and hopefully you've enjoyed. The second bonus crop of this bed is now the celery plants.

Like most things we start them from seed in trays in the nursery before planting out as small plug plants. We alternated sprouts and celery as 2 rows. The time has come to remove the celery in order to give the sprouts more space to keep growing.

Most growers would have just planted out the sprouts and had empty space around them. Not only have we managed to increase the value of the bed from a business point of view but we've had more living roots in the ground, covered the bare soil which has been really helpful in this hot weather but because carrots and celery are in a different plant family to sprouts we've increased the diversity both above and below ground - hopefully building a healthier and more resilient eco-system.

In the kitchen

You might find our celery has a much stronger and more complex flavour to the celery you'll find in the supermarket. It's best used fresh or you can chop it up and freeze it to add it to dishes as and when.