Celery Farm

Last week I drove past the celery farm I worked at when I was in high school. That's been some time ago, but they are still growing celery there.  I thought I would share a few pictures of it, because although it's grown a lot in my area, I know it isn't really common.
Celery grows in dirt called muck.  Muck is black, very rich dirt, that really holds water.  If you see a puddle sitting on top of it, you would be smart not to step in it because you might get stuck!

This is a planter. The planter I used 30+ years ago was smaller.  2 people sat on it, each had a box of baby celery plants in front of them.  We would take a handful of those plants and insert them, one at a time into a metal disc which circled around, placing each plant into the ground.

We used to get a nice tan on our planter, wearing shorts and tank tops and putting our feet up on the little fenders.  We didn't worry about skin cancer then and we thought that was a great bonus!

We used to stop if we missed a plant or to get a new box.  Now they have someone walk with them to take care of those issues.  Look at all those little plants in a row!

Here's a field of celery that's been growing for a little while.  I've always thought the rows of celery in the dark dirt was a pretty sight.

Soon the fields that were planted first will be ready to harvest.  There is a machine that pulls up the celery and puts it in a wagon.  It then comes into a barn, where it's trimmed - the bottom cut off and suckers pulled off. It then goes on a conveyer belt where the top is trimmed and it's washed.  It's then sorted by size into crates.  Usually the crates are trucked out, but sometimes each bunch of celery is bagged first.

I really enjoyed working on the celery farm.  I was able to work in each area during my years there - from the greenhouse, to the planter, to the trimming station, to the packing station - all hard work, but we had fun too.