How to Grow Common Root Crops, Part 2

Bulbs & Celery

The Tropical Grower is continuing How to Grow Common Root Crops, Part 2 with The Bulbs & Celery this week as part of our growing your own food at home series.  Who doesn’t need Onions, Garlic, and Celery in their kitchen?  A Worst Cook in America, maybe?  These are the basics, the bases, for the vast majority of dishes of most cuisines, and they are super simple grows in the garden.

Just like the Low Nutrient Lovers, these are Plant & Forget, and they require time, lots of it.  Unlike the Low Nutrient Lovers, they want a soil full of good stuff to munch on while they make the same.  Bulbs are also Not Root Vegetables as Bulbs are Not technically roots, and Celery isn’t grown under the soil anymore even though it is technically a Root Vegetable.  And now you know why the Part 2.  Root Crops that aren’t roots and Root Crops that grow on top of the soil.  How confusing.  Not really, you just need to know how they grow to eat your own.  Classifying them isn’t necessary. 

Bulbs vs. Roots & Stalks

Bulbs include Onions, Garlic, and their cross the Shallot.  While most people include more varieties in Bulbs like Leeks, Kohlrabi, Fennel, and Celeriac, none of these are actually bulbs.  They are roots or stalks like Celery.  Bulbs are actually made of plant stuff like leaves, stored.  All the green stuff and flowers coming out of it were made the year before.  All the nutrients it gathers this season, is stored for the next or the future.  

Roots are made of roots, and they make more roots, stalks and leaves.  It’s a delivery and storage system instead of like the classic bulb which is an entire plant stored.  Some stalks like Kohlrabi, Fennel and Celeriac grow part of their roots above ground, and some people call them bulbs.  Leeks have a bulbous root, but they are still considered stalks.  We can do this all day.  It doesn’t matter unless you are taking a test.

Soil & Fertilizer

Bulbs and Stalks require a nutrient rich soil.  These will grow better in a rich Sandy Compost or by adding a neutral commercial fertilizer to Black Sand if you are using those beds.  We hit the bed pre-planting with a granular Vegetable fertilizer and mix well whatever type of soil we’re using.  They will also like another helping or two of compost during the growing season or more nitrogen if you are adding fertilizer. 

The Bulbs

Onions

I’m not going to lie, I’m not a big fan of Onions.  We grow them for My Mom who uses them to cook.  However, as a grower, onions can live in Our Garden any day.  They are bulbs, which means a quick easy plant if you don’t try to grow them from seed, and they don’t take up much space.  We buy sets, baby bulbs, drop them into Sandy Compost, and wait until the green sprouts start to turn brown and fall over.  Besides weeding and making sure they are getting water, that’s it.

The White Onions we planted this year did great with only a few going bad before they were planted.  The Red ones not so much.  I wouldn’t recommend those as only 1 of 40 sprouted.  Huh?  I even tried to cold force them.  Nothing.  While we do have a couple of onion seed packets in there that came in variety packs, I’ve never tried to sprout a seed.  My understanding is it takes about 2 months, and I may have just decided on a summer project.

The Basics

Onions prefer full sun and about an inch of water a week.  Since this is a cold weather plant, they prefer shading during the hottest part of the day.  Try planting them on the east side of larger growers.  They will also tolerate more water with easily draining soils.  If you are getting more water, try a sandier soil mix.         

Planting Bulbs

We recommend soaking the sets overnight in water and planting directly into their growing hole.  You should know in a week or so whether they are active as little green sprouts should start emerging from the top unless you are planting in fall to let the onions sit overwinter in their holes.  In that case, you don’t want them to sprout until Spring.  Yup, a little roll of the dice there.  We obviously don’t winter anything, we grow, but my understanding is you need to make sure these don’t get too wet during the cold winter months as they can rot.

Generally, sets are planted 1 to 2 inches below the surface with the hairy root end pointing down.  If you are Growing Tropical, plant the bulb with the head, opposite the hairy end, just under the surface of the soil.  Mulch, mulch, mulch.

Onions can also be transplanted.  Meaning, if you grew sets into Onions, you can chop about an inch of the bottom root part off, the hairy end, and replant it.  It will grow another Onion.  Yea!  Now, any trained chef will tell you, you need the hairy end to cut an onion properly.  Not so.  Cutting towards the stem works almost perfectly.  Bulbs also divide and make little baby bulbs.  Bonus.

Bulb Growth 

The Bulb part of the Onion will start to grow when it gets enough daylight, not sunlight.  Depending on the variety, it ranges from 11 to 16 hours of daylight.  So, you won’t be growing the long day Walla Wallas in December when there is only 10 hours of daylight.  They can be in the ground, green tops growing, but the bulb part will not be increasing in size. You will be using last year’s stores.  The Walla Walla bulb won’t grow until there are 16 hours or more of daylight.  Interesting, huh?  So, plan on planting your Onions around growing during the longer day months or play with shorter day varieties.  

Harvest

Harvest Onions when the green part turns brown and starts to fall over.  Leave about an inch of the green stalk part on the bulb and store in a cool dry place until the stalk dries completely out and the ‘skin’ becomes papery thin.

Growing Tropical

When I first looked up growing Onions on UF’s website, they only recommended planting Sept-Dec, the Fall/Winter growing season for us.  The problem is winter doesn’t exactly have the sunlight hours needed for the end of growing season push.  The earlier you can get them in the ground without rotting, the better.  We also plant in early Feb for the spring.  Yup, short hour varieties do better because you want them out of the ground before the steady rains start.  Even in Black Sand, these have a tendency to rot.

Shallots, Kohlrabi & Leek

Grow Shallots, Kohlrabi and Leeks like Onions.  Shallots are even harvested the same.  The others can be consumed immediately.   

Soft Neck Garlic

If you are growing in northern regions Zone 6 or lower, you’ll want to plant a Hard Neck Garlic variety which we know nothing about growing.  In Zones 7-10, us, the Soft Neck Garlic varieties grow better.  Since planting Garlic depends entirely on your zone, you’re going to want to know yours.  

Garlic prefers to winter in-ground.  The easiest way to plant Garlic is by dropping individual cloves into planting holes in the Fall and allowing them to winter where they will grow in the Spring.  This requires a heavy layer of mulch for cold northern areas.  

That doesn’t work if you are Growing Tropical.  Drop your bulbs from November to early January after you have cold forced them in the fridge for 6-8 weeks.  Yeah, that just means you’re going to keep them in a paper bag in the refrigerator for a couple of months. You should see bulbs between May and June. If you’re having trouble getting cloves to develop, plant your cloves and water the 1st time by piling some ice on the planting hole.  Oh, my!  They’ll stay dormant a bit longer, but it should get them into the growing mood. 

Planting Cloves

Break the cloves apart from the bulb a few days before planting, leaving the papery husk on each clove for protection.  You’re not eating them.  Plant 2 to 4 inches deep for colder areas and 1-2 inches for warmer gardens.  If you are Growing Tropical, the top of the clove should be just under the soil.  You want them 4 to 8 inches apart with the wider root side down in the ground and the pointy end facing up.  Space rows 6 to 12 inches apart for crops.

Maintenance

Garlic likes about ½ to an inch of water a week and full sun unless you are Growing Tropical, try a partial sun spot or shade heavily after noon.  Like other Root Vegetables, don’t overwater.  You’ll still have to weed, but bugs and critters aren’t generally a problem as they don’t like the plant.  In fact, many growers drop Garlic as a companion plant to keep bugs and critters away from other veggies and fruit. Even the ornamental varieties do a pretty good job of deterring bugs.

Harvest

Harvest just like onions.

Celery

Celery is another Root Vegetable that requires little work and has a bad reputation.  There used to be trenching and blanching, but most varieties offered today are self-blanching.  The problem with celery is it takes forever to grow and you have to start it from seed in most cases.  But if it’s just out there, who cares?  I have never had to treat a celery plant for bugs, and it grows in Our Garden in both the Fall/Winter and Spring seasons.  I literally plant, weed, and harvest.  It just takes a while.  The time problem for growers in other non-tropical zones is there isn’t enough outside ‘grow’ season before the weather turns too warm or cold.  It can take up to 140 days to harvest.

The simple solution for non-tropical growers is to start your celery seeds inside, but any sheltered area where the nighttime temperature doesn’t drop below 40 degrees will work.  I start our seeds in the nursery 2 ½ to 3 months before I want to plant them.  Yup, that’s a long time.  It gives me something to plant in the nursery during the summer.  

Soil

Celery likes rich, poor draining soil.  Think, swamp, bog, or wet soil.  Hum?  That’s interesting since we grow it in Sandy Compost or Black Sand depending on where I’m planting it.  Since it is a plant we regularly rotate throughout Our Garden, it gets planted in areas with both soil types.  How can this be?  Because consistent moisture is what is important for Celery, it grows in our well watered stuff that drains.  Celery likes water.  If you aren’t going to water it regularly, make sure you have a soil that will retain the moisture for it. You should never let the soil completely dry out.

Fertilizer

Yes.  It’s an across the board liker of nutrients.  I’ve read numerous studies over the years about the effects of each Nitrogen, Phosphorus and Potassium on Celery, and it’s pretty funny that each study finds the one they’re studying increases yields, size, whatever.  It just means they like nutrients.  We hit the planting hole with a generous heaping of compost and a basic granular vegetable fertilizer.  I rarely feel the need to hit it again during the planting season, but if it needs it, we’ll go with another dose.

Organic growers usually rotate these in as a ‘Root Vegetable’ after the Brassicas to soak up the remaining Nitrogen when the soil is still rich in Phosphorus and Potassium.  They can also go in after the Legemes when the soil is rich in Nitrogen.  The versatility makes it a good rotator, but the length of time it takes to grow means it will be the only plant there for an entire season.           

Water

Yup, water any dry out of it and make sure you have a heavy layer of mulch.  We sprinkle 30 minutes everyday with well draining soils.  However you get lots of water to a plant in your garden, that’s what Celery wants.  It wants consistent moisture throughout the growing season, never completely drying out.  Your stalks and leaves will look wilty if it isn’t getting enough water.  Small, never developing plants can also be a sign you are not giving it enough water or sun.

Full Sun

Plant your celery in full sun, at least 6 hours if you’re Growing Tropical for Fall and Winter crops.  However, if you are planting in Tropical Spring or Summer seasons, Celery will tolerate partial shade, and most Tropical Growers try to shade their Celery during the hottest parts of the day.  Hint-Hint, that goes for most vegetables in the Tropics.  This also assures it will get its sun requirement when the storms start shading the sun in the late afternoons.  

We like planting holes with 6 hours of morning sun and shade during the afternoon, but I tried several plants this Spring in the Full Sun Raised Crop Beds.  They are getting some shading from the already established Broccoli, but there is a lot of sun.  It seems to be going okay, but we’ll see how they’re fairing next month.  I’ve never had a Celery plant fall over from the sun, but I’ve never tried to bake one either.  We try to go easy rather than harsh with our Tropical sun.

Blanching Varieties

While I rarely see the Trenching type of seeds, there are still the old varieties out there.  Blanching, or covering the stalks, not the leaves is required for these types.  Look for instructions that include planting in trenches or covering the stalks with paper bags or tubes.  

The old traditional Trenching varieties required blanching in order to make the stalks pale green and less tough.  You basically planted it in a hole and filled dirt over the top of it as the stalks grew, leaving out the green leafy ends.  The stalk parts were grown under the soil.  It’s why people consider it a Root Vegetable.  Growers got creative at some point and opened paper bags at the bottom or used tubes to cover the stalks without actually trenching.  It’s what gave Celery a bad name as a difficult grow.  Then, they got even more creative and made the Self-Blanching varieties to skip the covering all together.  

Self-Blanching

Now, the Self-Blanching varieties do Not require any of it.  You plant it.  It grows.  You harvest it.  Some growers still blanch even these to make stalks tender, but it removes the nutrients from the part you eat.  Uh?  Yeah, you want to keep those.

Maintenance

Once these are planted, weeding is the only maintenance in Our Garden.  We’ve never had any bug problems, and they rarely lose leaves or stalks unless there is something wrong.

Fennel & Celeriac

Fennel and Celeriac can be grown exactly like Celery.  Remember to give them both enough space to spread out.  Our 2 Fennel plants last year took over a 5’ x 3’ area.  No Kidding.

Root Crops

Now go out there and Ace your Root Crops.  They will be some of your easiest grows.  I even forgot about a Celery plant for a month or so this winter.  It was planted out of the way and  grew perfectly without my help.  How’s that for do nothing? You can also check out How to Grow Common Root Crops, Part 1 the Low Nutrient Lovers featuring Carrots, Turnips, Radishes, and Sweet Potatoes for more easy grows.