Growing Celeriac: A Complete Profile
By Growing Home Greens Team · July 24, 2026
Celeriac is celery bred in the other direction: same species, but the plant puts its effort into a swollen root instead of stalks. It comes out of the ground looking like a knot of pale roots wrapped round a cricket ball, and once you’ve peeled it, it tastes like celery that has calmed down. Grated raw into a remoulade or roasted in chunks, it earns its space.
It is also, honestly, one of the slower things you can grow. Sow in February, dig in October.
Sowing it
Start seed indoors about ten weeks before your last frost. The seed is tiny and slow, often two to three weeks to germinate, and it wants light, so press it into the surface rather than covering it.
Transplant out about two weeks before your last frost date once the seedlings have a few true leaves. Celeriac tolerates a light frost better than it tolerates being planted into cold, dry soil.
From there, the whole crop comes down to one thing: water. Celeriac has a shallow root system and a long season, and every dry spell it goes through shows up as a smaller root in autumn. If you have a soaker hose, this is the crop to put it on.
What goes wrong
The root stays small. Almost always water, sometimes feeding. Celeriac is a heavy feeder that sulks through drought and does not catch up afterwards. Mulch it, and don’t let it dry out in August when you’re paying attention to the tomatoes.
The root is hollow or pithy inside. Inconsistent watering while the root was sizing up. A drought followed by a soaking is worse than steady moderate dryness.
The leaves go brown and spotty. Usually Septoria leaf blight, splashed up from the soil by rain. Mulching helps, spacing for airflow helps, and picking a variety with upright growth like Mars helps more than either.
Side shoots everywhere and no central root. Normal. Strip the outer leaves and any side roots from around the crown in late summer so the plant concentrates on one root. It feels brutal and it works.
Where to put it
Rich, moisture-retentive soil, full sun, and somewhere you’ll walk past with a hose. Treat the bed the way you’d treat one for celery.
Leave it in the ground until the first hard frosts, then lift, cut the leaves off and store it somewhere cold and damp. It will keep until spring, which is the whole argument for growing something that took eight months.
Sources: Brilliant and Mars, Johnny’s Selected Seeds; Giant Prague, True Leaf Market.
Companion planting guide for Celeriac (Celery Root) · Find your planting dates
Typically viable in USDA zones 3-9. Not sure your zone? Look it up by ZIP code.
Method: Start indoors: Start indoors from seed, then transplant outside. Celeriac (Celery Root) needs a head start most zones can't give it by direct-sowing alone.
See exact start-indoors, direct-sow, and harvest dates for your zone →
How many Celeriac (Celery Root) plants fit per square foot?
Spacing: 4 per square foot (square-foot-gardening spacing). Mature height: 1-1.5 ft.
Varieties worth considering
- Brilliant: Listed at 110 days and described as early-maturing for the crop, which tells you something about celeriac. Smooth-skinned, so less of the root is lost to peeling. (source)
- Mars: Similar to Brilliant but holds better in the ground and stays firm inside even on large roots. Upright growth means less rain splash onto the crown and less Septoria blight, which is the disease that usually spoils the leaves. (source)
- Giant Prague (Large Smooth Prague): The open-pollinated heirloom behind most of the hybrids above, grown since the 1870s and still the variety to save seed from if you want one that breeds true. Slower and less uniform than Brilliant or Mars, at 110-120 days, but hardier and more disease-resistant than celery itself. (source)
- 'President' (best for: clean tops, storage): Osborne lists a fast 110 days from transplant with clean, dark green, disease- and tip-burn-free tops and high uniformity, similar timing to Brilliant but with tops specifically bred to stay clean. Suitable for long storage like the others here. (source)
- 'Ibis' (best for: disease resistance, bolt tolerance): Vital Seeds notes resistance to Septoria (the leaf blight this profile calls the main foliage problem) plus bolt-hardiness for early planting under protection, a combination none of the other three varieties here specifically claim. Worth it if Septoria has been a recurring issue in your celeriac bed. (source)
- 'Monarch' (best for: smooth roots, storage): Thompson & Morgan describes very smooth, easily washable, creamy-colored roots that store well in a root cellar, a step up in skin quality over Giant Prague's rougher heirloom roots for less peeling loss. (source)
Cited from the source shown next to each variety. We haven't grown these ourselves yet, so treat this as a research-backed starting point, not a personal endorsement.
Where to buy celeriac seeds
As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases. Some links on this page also go to other retailers we may earn a commission from as an affiliate, at no extra cost to you. We only recommend products with a genuine consensus of positive, independent reviews. See the sources cited on each item.
See it growing
Search YouTube for "growing celeriac (celery root)" videos → (a live search, not a hand-picked video; results vary and aren't vetted by us)
%3A%20Celeriac%20takes%20half%20the%20year%20and%20looks%20like%20something%20dug%20out%20of%20a%20swamp%2C%20then%20stores%20until%20March.%20What%20it%20needs%2C%20what%20usually%20goes%20wrong%2C%20and%20which%20varieties%20to%20buy.)
Pin this for later
Growing Celeriac (Celery Root): Celeriac takes half the year and looks like something dug out of a swamp, then stores until March. What it needs, what usually goes wrong, and which varieties to buy.
Save to Pinterest