Celery & Celery Seed

Celery (Apium graveolens) is grown both as the familiar crisp stalk vegetable and, if left to flower and set seed, for celery seed — a tiny, intensely flavored spice with a concentrated version of celery's savory, slightly bitter character. A related wild form, smallage, is the seed's more traditional source.

Growing Celery

Celery is a demanding crop, needing consistently moist, rich soil and a long, cool growing season to develop the thick, crisp stalks most gardeners are after — it bolts and turns bitter quickly under drought stress or summer heat. As a biennial, letting a plant overwinter and flower the following year is how home gardeners can harvest their own celery seed, though most simply buy it as a spice.

Culinary Uses

Celery stalks form the backbone of mirepoix and countless soups and stocks, prized for the savory depth they bring rather than for eating raw alone. Celery seed, far more concentrated, flavors pickling brines, Bloody Marys, and coleslaw dressing, and is also the base for celery salt, made by grinding the seed with salt.