Last edited on January 27, 2021. View history
Smallage
A variety of celery
How to sow smallage: Sow seeds indoors 10-12 weeks before transplanting outdoors
Sun requirement for smallage: Plant in Full Sun
The wild form of celery is known as "smallage". It has a furrowed stalk with wedge-shaped leaves, the whole plant having a coarse, earthy taste, and a distinctive smell. The stalks are not usually eaten (except in soups or stews in French cuisine), but the leaves may be used in salads, and its seeds are those sold as a spice.
With cultivation and blanching, the stalks lose their acidic qualities and assume the mild, sweetish, aromatic taste particular to celery as a salad plant.
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Smallage facts
Lifespan
Crop cycle
Max altitude
Optimal light
What are growing degree days?
A plant grows with warmth, not with days. A growing degree day is one day's worth of useful warmth: how many degrees the day's average temperature is above the lowest temperature the crop grows at. Add them up from planting and you know how far along the crop is, whatever the calendar says.
Say that lowest temperature is 10°C. A day averaging 17°C gives 7 growing degree days. A day averaging 8°C gives none, as it is too cold for the crop to grow. That is why the same lettuce takes about 50 days in a summer and 90 in an autumn: it needs the same total warmth either way.
For smallage, the FAO EcoCrop database gives a lowest growing temperature of 5°C and a shortest growing cycle of 40 days at its best temperature, about 520 growing degree days to a first harvest.
Where you've told us where your garden is, we use this and the weather there to predict when your smallage will be ready to harvest. We don't use it for how long a plant lives or when it finishes: we go by what members have logged for that.
Growing smallage
- Sow seeds indoors 10 weeks before planting out
- Harden off the seedlings 1 week before planting out
- Dig compost into the bed 1 week before planting out
- Water deeply at planting out every week
- Mulch to hold moisture 2 weeks after planting out
- Feed with liquid fertiliser 4 weeks after planting out every 2 weeks
- Pick the outer stalks at first harvest every week
How members grow smallage
Sunniness
Planted from
Plant smallage with
red cabbage
Video
Where smallage grow
Only plantings by members who have set their locations are shown.
What people are saying about smallage
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Who's planted smallage
Syzygium
Smallage harvests
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Time to harvest
If sown now, expect a first harvest in about 40 to 150 days.
From the growing cycle in the FAO EcoCrop database, which is the same wherever it is grown.
Ecological requirements
Data from the FAO EcoCrop database for Apium graveolens L.
| Family / Taxonomy | Magnoliopsida Rosidae Apiales Umbelliferae |
|---|---|
| Life form | herb |
| Life span | biennial |
| Habit | erect |
| Optimal soil depth | shallow (20-50 cm) |
| Optimal soil texture | medium, organic |
| Optimal soil fertility | high |
| Optimal soil drainage | poorly (saturated >50% of year), well (dry spells) |
| Optimal soil salinity | medium (4-10 dS/m) |
Learn more about smallage
Resources outside Growstuff.
