Growing Celery in Florida

Apium graveolens · Apiaceae (carrot family)

Celery is a cool-season crop that UF/IFAS calls difficult for home gardens. It needs very moist soil while seeds sprout and seedlings establish, and three months or more to mature, so early-maturing varieties help.¹

When to plant celery in Florida

Region	Months on the UF/IFAS calendar
North Florida	January transplant with care · February transplant with care · March transplant with care · September transplant with care · October transplant with care · November transplant with care · December transplant with care
Central Florida	January transplant with care · February transplant with care · March transplant with care · October transplant with care · November transplant with care · December transplant with care
South Florida	January transplant with care · February transplant with care · March transplant with care · October transplant with care · November transplant with care · December transplant with care

Months follow UF/IFAS Gardening Solutions, "What to plant by month"; "transplant with care" is their wording for crops that resent root disturbance. Not sure of your region? Find your county.

Planting^{1, 2}

How to start	transplant with care
Seed depth (inches)	on the surface
Spacing in the row (inches)	6 to 12
Between rows (inches)	18
Days to harvest	75 to 90

SP 103 planting dates: north Jan to Mar, central Sept to Mar, south Oct to Mar. The commercial handbook (CV294) gives north Aug to Feb, central and south Sept to Mar.

Varieties UF/IFAS lists for Florida^{1, 2}

Utah strains
Tall Utah 52-70R Improved (from the commercial handbook)

Growing¹

Sun	Full sun. SP 103 advises a garden spot with at least six hours of direct sun a day (general advice, not specific to this crop).
Soil pH	5.8 to 6.3 (SP 103's general target for vegetable gardens on sandy soil; no change is needed anywhere from 5.5 to 7.0). No crop-specific figure was found.
Water	Keep soil moisture high during seeding and the seedling stage.

Needs three months or longer to mature; look for early-maturing varieties.

Pests and diseases in Florida²

Caterpillars (including celery leaf-tier, beet armyworm, cabbage looper), aphids, leafminers: Listed in the celery pest table of the commercial Vegetable Production Handbook (CV294), not a home-garden guide.
Early blight (Cercospora apii), late blight (Septoria), pink rot (Sclerotinia): Listed in the celery disease table of the same commercial handbook.

In an aquaponics system

We haven't found a published source that covers celery in aquaponics systems, so this lesson doesn't guess. The planting months above apply to a grow bed the same as to soil; the water does the watering.

What this lesson doesn't cover yet

No UF/IFAS Gardening Solutions page or home-garden EDIS document for celery was found; the lesson rests on SP 103 and the commercial handbook.
No UF/IFAS source describing how or when to harvest home-grown celery was found; harvest is left empty.
No fertilizer or crop-specific pH advice was found for home gardens.
Neither SRAC 454 nor the FAO aquaponics manual mentions celery.
SP 103 and CV294 disagree on north Florida planting dates (Jan to Mar vs Aug to Feb).

Your county extension office and its Florida Master Gardeners can fill these in for your garden.

Sources

Florida Vegetable Gardening Guide. UF/IFAS Extension, EDIS, SP 103. Read 2026-11-02.
Vegetable Production Handbook of Florida, Chapter 10. Minor Vegetable Crop Production. UF/IFAS Extension, EDIS, CV294. Read 2026-11-02.
Recirculating Aquaculture Tank Production Systems: Aquaponics—Integrating Fish and Plant Culture. Southern Regional Aquaculture Center (SRAC), SRAC 454. Read 2026-11-02.
Small-scale aquaponic food production: Integrated fish and plant farming (Somerville et al. 2014). Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), FAO Fisheries and Aquaculture Technical Paper 589. Read 2026-11-02.

Every fact above is restated in our own words from these documents, written 2026-11-02. Independent of the University of Florida.

When to plant celery in Florida

Planting1, 2

Varieties UF/IFAS lists for Florida1, 2

Growing1

Pests and diseases in Florida2