I was in the Rutgers Gardens greenhouse the other day, transplanting lovage that I had grown from seed. And I’m looking at it and thinking to myself: “Tastes like celery. So what? Why would anyone want to grow this stuff?”

Obviously, I’m not a veggie gardener. If I were, I would have known that celery is notoriously difficult to grow here in New Jersey and it’s a biennial so even if you are successful growing it, you have to keep replacing it. Lovage, on the other hand, is super easy to grow, it’s a perennial and it gets bigger every year so you have to divide it every few years.  Lovage has a stronger taste than celery so you use less of it. It can grow to six feet tall so you only really need one plant.

So perhaps a better question would be, why would anyone want to grow celery?

Click on over to my article on lovage to find out how to grow and use it. It has had some interesting uses in the past. Love potion anyone?