Plant · P-626

Chinese Celery

Apium graveolens

Chinese Celery is the leaf-cropped form of ordinary celery, grown for concentrated savoury leaf instead of a thick stalk or a swollen root - most palates find it too strong to eat raw on its own, so it goes into soups, stocks and seasoning, or is diluted through a mixed salad. Cutting the outer leaves and leaving the crown gives repeat harvest off one plant rather than a single lifting, and surplus or bolted leaf makes a protein-rich feed for chickens. It is a cool-season crop that bolts to seed if a young plant hits a cold snap, and its real limit is summer heat rather than winter cold. Planted through a brassica bed it also repels cabbage white butterflies from its neighbors.