I stopped blanching celery years ago. They don't in the market celery one buys.

You can try pvc drain pipes, you can get them in the plumbing department of home centers, they are cheap and cut easily. You can also use tomato juice cans with the top an bottom cut off.
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Calliope, one year I didnt blanch it, it was so green and bitter, I had to throw it away.

Dan, I thought about using PVC, but didnt know if anyone else had tried it. Thanks for the feedback!

I use pieces of cardboard boxes. Cut to the size you want, wet them a bit so that they're pliable, wrap them around the plant and tie with string.

I have never grown celery, but here's what I could think of:

1. Two-foot re-bars pounded into the ground along wooded boards will hold the boards upright. The re-bars can be installed in pairs or loosie-goosie along the boards. It's easy and very inexpensive, and the materials can be reused. Works only if your celery is lined up in rows, of course.

(Warning: Re-bars should be pounded down below top edge of boards, otherwise they create a hazard. Alternately, install old tennis balls on protruding re-bars (to prevent accidently poking out an eye or getting things snagged on them).

2. Woven shade fabric or landscape fabric, though costly, could block light.

BTW, how did you grow your celery? When did you start your seed? At this stage, how long till you can harvest mature celery?

Bomber, sorry to hear that. Celery as one would suspect, requires copious amounts of water to remain sweet and mild. I seldom use the outside stalks anyway. Back when I first started growing it, I would harvest the whole plant, but once when I just needed a few stalks I removed them and left the plant and noticed that as long as the heart remains intact, it keeps regenerating perpetually.

A couple dozen plants is all I raise anymore and when I need it, just take a sharp knife out with me to the garden, and slice off the outside stalks to pitch in the compost, take what I need of the more tender inner stalks and leave the heart.

I have a greenhouse/nursery operation and those tall rigid one gallon nursery pans are abundant. I have found if one cuts the bottom off of them they are just the right height to use for a lot of garden purposes. I have used them as barricades around young head lettuce and cabbage plants to keep bunnies from nibbling, and also don't see why something like that couldn't be used to keep sun off celery branches. If the soil is at all worked up and loose, you can just push them down into it and they 'hold' and don't blow away, and become more imbedded after a few rain.

Good luck.

I was just thinking about this (I've never grown celery), and wondered if cheap felt fabric wrapped around it and fastened with a clothespin would be effective?

Sue

You can use anything, even pulling soil up around them, mulch or compost. In fact, you can just take out a ball of string and gently gather the outer stalks around the inner ones and tie it. All but the outer stalks will be blanched. If planted closely enough, the leaves will shade the stalks.

It really doesn't have to be a difficult operation or made any harder than it needs to be.

have tried the usual method "dirt"

One thing that has not been mention is when do you start blanching? Is there a particular time or plant size when it should be started? Mine plants are about 11" tall and maybe 3" thick.
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Check out my veggie garden blog:
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I measured this morning. The biggest of the four bunches is 13" high and about 8" across. Of course, this is w. the stalks protruding every which way.

I'm going to get some PVC pipe from Lowe's on my way home from work.