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Home Vegetable Gardening

F >> F. F. Rockwell >> Home Vegetable Gardening




If you will keep on hand, ready for instant use, a good hand-sprayer
and a modern powder gun, a few covered boxes, tobacco dust, arsenate of
lead and materials for kerosene emulsion and Bordeaux mixture, and are
not afraid to resort to hand-picking when necessary, you will be able
to cope with all the plant enemies you are likely to encounter. The
slight expense necessary--considering that the two implements mentioned
will last for years with a little care--will pay as handsome a dividend
as any garden investment you can make.




CHAPTER XIV

HARVESTING AND STORING


It is a very common thing to allow the garden vegetables not used to
rot on the ground, or in it. There is a great deal of unnecessary waste
in this respect, for a great many of the things so neglected may just
as well be carried into winter, and will pay a very handsome dividend
for the slight trouble of gathering and storing them.

A good frost-proof, cool cellar is the best and most convenient place
in which to store the surplus product of the home garden. But, lacking
this, a room partitioned off in the furnace cellar and well ventilated,
or a small empty room, preferably on the north side of the house, that
can be kept below forty degrees most of the time, will serve
excellently. Or, some of the most bulky vegetables, such as cabbage and
the root crops, may be stored in a prepared pit made in the garden
itself.

As it is essential that such a pit be properly constructed, I shall
describe one with sufficient detail to enable the home gardener readily
to construct it. Select a spot where water will not stand. Put the
vegetables in a triangular-shaped pile, the base three or four feet
wide, and as long as required. Separate the different vegetables in
this pile by stakes about two feet higher than the top of the pile, and
label them. Then cover with a layer of clean straw or bog hay, and over
this four inches of soil, dug up three feet back from the edges of the
pile. This work must be done late in the fall, as nearly as one can
judge just before lasting freezing begins, and preferably on a cold
morning when the ground is just beginning to freeze; the object being
to freeze the partly earth covering at once, so that it will not be
washed or blown off. The vegetables must be perfectly dry when stored;
dig them a week or so previous and keep them in an airy shed. As soon
as this first layer of earth is partly frozen, but before it freezes
through, put on another thick layer of straw or hay and cover with
twelve inches of earth, keeping the pile as steep as possible; a
slightly clayey soil, that may be beaten down firmly into shape with a
spade, being best. The pile should be made where it will be sheltered
from the sun as much as possible, such as on the north side of a
building. The disadvantage of the plan is, of course, that the
vegetables cannot be got at until the pile is opened up, in early
spring, or late if desired. Its two advantages are that the vegetables
stored will be kept in better condition than in any cellar, and that
cellar or house
room will be saved.

For storing small quantities of the roots, such as carrots or beets,
they are usually packed in boxes or barrels and covered in with clean
sand. Where an upstairs room has to be used, swamp or sphagnum moss may
replace the sand. It makes an ideal packing medium, as it is much
lighter and cleaner than the sand. In many localities it may be had for
the gathering; in others one may get it from a florist.

In storing vegetables of any kind, and by whatever method, see to it
that:

(1) They are always clean, dry and sound. The smallest spot or bruise
is a danger center, which may spread destruction to the lot.

(2) That the temperature, whatever required--in most cases 33-38
degrees being best--is kept as even as possible.

(3) That the storage place is kept clean, dry (by ventilation when
needed) and sweet (by use of whitewash and lime).

(4) That no rats or other rodents are playing havoc with your treasures
while you never suspect it.

So many of the vegetables can be kept, for either part or all of the
winter, that I shall take them up in order, with brief directions.
Many, such as green beans, rhubarb, tomatoes, etc., which cannot be
kept in the ordinary ways, may be easily and cheaply canned, and where
one has a good cellar, it will certainly pay to get a canning outfit
and make use of this method.

_Beans:_--Almost all the string and snap beans, when dried in the
pods, are excellent for cooking. And any pods which have not been
gathered in the green state should be picked, _as soon as dry_ (as
wet weather is likely to mould or sprout them), and stored in a dry
place, or spread on a bench in the sun. They will keep, either shelled
or in the dry pods, for winter.

_Beets:_--In October, before the first hard frosts, take up and
store in a cool cellar, in clean, perfectly dry sand, or in pits
outside (see Cabbage); do not cut off the long tap roots, nor the tops
close enough to cause any "bleeding."

_Brussels sprouts:_--These are improved by freezing, and may be
used from the open garden until December. If wanted later, store them
with cabbage, or hang up the stalks in bunches in a cold cellar.

_Cabbage:_--If only a few heads are to be stored, a cool cellar
will do. Even if where they will be slightly frozen, they will not be
injured, so long as they do not freeze and thaw repeatedly. They should
not be taken in until there is danger of severe freezing, as they will
keep better, and a little frost improves the flavor. For storing small
quantities outdoors, dig a trench, a foot or so deep, in a well drained
spot, wide enough to admit two heads side by side. Pull up the
cabbages, without removing either stems or outer leaves, and store side
by side, head down, in the bottom of the trench. Now cover over lightly
with straw, meadow hay, or any refuse which will keep the dirt from
freezing to the cabbages, and then cover over the whole with earth, to
the depth of several inches, but allowing the top of the roots to
remain exposed, which will facilitate digging them up as required. Do
not bury the cabbage until as late as possible before severe freezing,
as a spell of warm weather would rot it.

_Carrots:_--Treat in the same way as beets. They will not be hurt
by a slight freezing of the tops, before being dug, but care must be
taken not to let the roots become touched by frost.

_Celery:_--That which is to be used early is blanched outside, by
banking, as described in Chapter XI, and as celery will stand a little
freezing, will be used directly from the garden. For the portion to be
kept over winter, provide boxes about a foot wide, and nearly as deep
as the celery is high. Cover the bottoms of these boxes with two or
three inches of sand, and wet thoroughly. Upon this stand the celery
upright, and packed close together. In taking up the celery for storing
in this way, the roots and whatever earth adheres to them are kept on,
not cut, as it is bought in the stores. The boxes are then stored in a
cellar, or other dark, dry, cold place where the temperature will not
go more than five degrees below freezing. The celery will be ready for
use after Christmas. If a long succession is wanted, store from the
open two or three different times, say at the end of October, first
part of November and the latter part of November.

_Cucumbers, Melons, Egg-plant:_--While there is no way of storing
these for any great length of time without recourse to artificial cold,
they may be had for some time by storing just before the first frosts
in a cool, dark cellar, care being taken in handling the fruits to give
them no bruises.

_Onions:_--If the onions got a good early start in the spring, the
tops will begin to die down by the middle of August. As soon as the
tops have turned yellow and withered they should be pulled, on the
first clear dry day, and laid in windrows (three or four rows in one),
but not heaped up. They should be turned over frequently, by hand or
with a wooden rake, and removed to a shed or barn floor as soon as dry,
where the tops can be cut off. Keep them spread out as much as
possible, and give them open ventilation until danger of frost. Then
store in a dry place and keep as cool as possible without freezing. A
few barrels, with holes knocked in the sides, will do well for a small
quantity.

_Parsley:_--Take up a few plants and keep in a flower-pot or small
box, in the kitchen window.

_Parsnips:_--These will stay in the ground without injury all
winter, but part of the crop may be taken up late in the fall and
stored with beets, carrots and turnips, to use while the ground is
frozen.

_Potatoes:_--When the vines have died down and the skin of the new
potatoes has become somewhat hardened, they can be dug and stored in a
cool, dry cellar at once. Be sure to give plenty of ventilation until
danger of frost. Keep from the light, as this has the effect of making
the potatoes bitter. If there is any sign of rot among the tubers, do
not dig them up until it has stopped.

_Squash and Pumpkins:_--The proper conditions for storing for
winter will be indicated by the drying and shrinking of the stem.
_Cut_ them from the vines, being careful never to break off the
stem, turn over, rub off the dirt and leave the under side exposed to a
few days' sunlight. Then carry in a spring wagon, or spring
wheelbarrow, covered with old bags or hay to keep from any bruises.
Store in the dryest part of the cellar, and if possible where the
temperature will not go below forty degrees. Leave them on the vines in
the field as late as possible, while escaping frosts.

_Tomatoes:_--Just before the first frosts are likely to begin,
pick all of the best of the unripened fruits. Place part of these on
clean straw in a coldframe, giving protection, where they will
gradually ripen up. Place others, that are fully developed but not
ripe, in straw in the cellar. In this way fresh tomatoes may frequently
be had as late as Christmas.

_Turnip:_--These roots, if desired, can be stored as are beets or
carrots.

It is hard to retain our interest in a thing when most of its
usefulness has gone by. It is for that reason, I suppose, that one sees
so many forsaken and weed-grown gardens every autumn, where in the
spring everything was neat and clean. But there are two very excellent
reasons why the vegetable garden should not be so abandoned--to say
nothing of appearances! The first is that many vegetables continue to
grow until the heavy frosts come; and the second, that the careless
gardener who thus forsakes his post is sowing no end of trouble for
himself for the coming year. For weeds left to themselves, even late in
the fall, grow in the cool moist weather with astonishing rapidity,
and, almost before one realizes it, transform the well kept garden into
a ragged wilderness, where the intruders have taken such a strong
foothold that they cannot be pulled up without tearing everything else
with them. So we let them go--and, left to themselves, they accomplish
their purpose in life, and leave upon the ground an evenly distributed
supply of plump ripe seeds, which next spring will cause the perennial
exclamation, "Mercy, John, where did all these weeds come from?" And
John replies, "I don't know; we kept the garden clean last summer. I
think there must be weed seeds in the fertilizer."

Do not let up on your fight with weeds, for every good vegetable that
is left over can be put to some use. Here and there in the garden will
be a strip that has gone by, and as it is now too late to plant, we
just let it go. Yet now is the time we should be preparing all such
spots for withstanding next summer's drouth! You may remember how
strongly was emphasized the necessity for having abundant humus
(decayed vegetable matter) in the soil--how it acts like a sponge to
retain moisture and keep things growing through the long, dry spells
which we seem to be sure of getting every summer. So take thought for
next year. Buy a bushel of rye, and as fast as a spot in your garden
can be cleaned up, harrow, dig or rake it over, and sow the rye on
broadcast. Just enough loose surface dirt to cover it and let it
sprout, is all it asks. If the weather is dry, and you can get a small
roller, roll it in to ensure better germination. It will come up
quickly; it will keep out the weeds which otherwise would be taking
possession of the ground; it will grow until the ground is frozen solid
and begin again with the first warm spring day; it will keep your
garden from washing out in heavy rains, and capture and save from being
washed away and wasted a good deal of left-over plant food; it will
serve as just so much real manure for your garden; it will improve the
mechanical condition of the soil, and it will add the important element
of humus to it.

In addition to these things, you will have an attractive and luxuriant
garden spot, instead of an unsightly bare one. And in clearing off
these patches for rye, beware of waste. If you have hens, or by chance
a pig, they will relish old heads of lettuce, old pea-vines, still
green after the last picking, and the stumps and outer leaves of
cabbage. Even if you have not this means of utilizing your garden's by-
products, do not let them go to waste. Put everything into a square
pile--old sods, weeds, vegetable tops, refuse, dirt, leaves, lawn
sweepings--anything that will rot. Tread this pile down thoroughly;
give it a soaking once in a while if within reach of the hose, and two
or three turnings with a fork. Next spring when you are looking for
every available pound of manure with which to enrich your garden, this
compost heap will stand you in good stead.

Burn _now_ your old pea-brush, tomato poles and everything that is
not worth keeping over for next year. Do not leave these things lying
around to harbor and protect eggs and insects and weed seeds. If any
bean-poles, stakes, trellises or supports seem in good enough condition
to serve another year, put them under cover now; and see that all your
tools are picked up and put in one place, where you can find them and
overhaul them next February. As soon as your surplus pole beans have
dried in their pods, take up poles and all and store in a dry place.
The beans may be taken off later at your leisure.

Be careful to cut down and burn (or put in the compost heap) all weeds
around your fences, and the edges of your garden, _before_ they
ripen seed.

If the suggestions given are followed, the vegetable garden may be
stretched far into the winter. But do not rest at that. Begin to plan
_now_ for your next year's garden. Put a pile of dirt where it
will not be frozen, or dried out, when you want to use it next February
for your early seeds. If you have no hotbed, fix the frames and get the
sashes for one now, so it will be ready to hand when the ground is
frozen solid and covered with snow next spring. If you have made garden
mistakes this year, be planning now to rectify them next--without
progress there is no fun in the game. Let next spring find you with
your plans all made, your materials all on hand and a fixed resolution
to have the best garden you have ever had.




Part Three--Fruits and Berries


CHAPTER XV.

THE VARIETIES OF POME AND STONE FRUITS


Many a home gardener who has succeeded well with vegetables is, for
some reason or other, still fearsome about trying his hand at growing
his own fruit.

This is all a mistake; the initial expense is very slight (fruit trees
will cost but twenty-five to forty cents each, and the berry bushes
only about four cents each), and the same amount of care that is
demanded by vegetables, if given to fruit, will produce apples,
peaches, pears and berries far superior to any that can be bought,
especially in flavor.

I know a doctor in New York, a specialist, who has attained prominence
in his profession, and who makes a large income; he tells me that there
is nothing in the city that hurts him so much as to have to pay out a
nickel whenever he wants an apple. His boyhood home was on a
Pennsylvania farm, where apples were as free as water, and he cannot
get over the idea of their being one of Nature's gracious gifts, any
more than he can overcome his hankering for that crisp, juicy,
uncloying flavor of a good apple, which is not quite equaled by the
taste of any other fruit.

And yet it is not the saving in expense, although that is considerable,
that makes the strongest argument for growing one's own fruit. There
are three other reasons, each of more importance. First is quality. The
commercial grower cannot afford to grow the very finest fruit. Many of
the best varieties are not large enough yielders to be available for
his use, and he cannot, on a large scale, so prune and care for his
trees that the individual fruits receive the greatest possible amount
of sunshine and thinning out--the personal care that is required for
the very best quality. Second, there is the beauty and the value that
well kept fruit trees add to a place, no matter how small it is. An
apple tree in full bloom is one of the most beautiful pictures that
Nature ever paints; and if, through any train of circumstances, it ever
becomes advisable to sell or rent the home, its desirability is greatly
enhanced by the few trees necessary to furnish the loveliness of
showering blossoms in spring, welcome shade in summer and an abundance
of delicious fruits through autumn and winter. Then there is the fun of
doing it--of planting and caring for a few young trees, which will
reward your labors, in a cumulative way, for many years to come.

But enough of reasons. If the call of the soil is in your veins, if
your fingers (and your brain) in the springtime itch to have a part in
earth's ever-wonderful renascence, if your lips part at the thought of
the white, firm, toothsome flesh of a ripened-on-the-tree red apple--
then you must have a home orchard without delay.

And it is not a difficult task. Apples, pears and the stone fruits,
fortunately, are not very particular about their soils. They take
kindly to anything between a sandy soil so loose as to be almost
shifting, and heavy clay. Even these soils can be made available, but
of course not without more work. And you need little room to grow all
the fruit your family can possibly eat.

Time was, when to speak of an apple tree brought to mind one of those
old, moss-barked giants that served as a carriage shed and a summer
dining-room, decorated with scythes and rope swings, requiring the
services of a forty-foot ladder and a long-handled picker to gather the
fruit. That day is gone. In its stead have come the low-headed standard
and the dwarf forms. The new types came as new institutions usually do,
under protest. The wise said they would never be practical--the trees
would not get large enough and teams could not be driven under them.
But the facts remained that the low trees are more easily and
thoroughly cared for; that they do not take up so much room; that they
are less exposed to high winds, and such fruit as does fall is not
injured; that the low limbs shelter the roots and conserve moisture;
and, above all, that picking can be accomplished much more easily and
with less injury to fine, well ripened fruit. The low-headed tree has
come to stay.

If your space will allow, the low-headed standards will give you better
satisfaction than the dwarfs. They are longer-lived, they are
healthier, and they do not require nearly so much intensive culture. On
the other hand, the dwarfs may be used where there is little or no room
for the standards. If there is no other space available, they may be
put in the vegetable or flower garden, and incidentally they are then
sure of receiving some of that special care which they need in the way
of fertilization and cultivation.

As I have said, any average soil will grow good fruit. A gravelly loam,
with a gravel subsoil, is the ideal. Do not think from this, however,
that all you have to do is buy a few trees from a nursery agent, stick
them in the ground and from your negligence reap the rewards that
follow only intelligent industry. The soil is but the raw material
which work and care alone can transform, through the medium of the
growing tree, into the desired result of a cellar well stored each
autumn with fruit.

Fruit trees have one big advantage over vegetables--the ground can be
prepared for them while they are growing. If the soil will grow a crop
of clover it is already in good shape to furnish the trees with food at
once. If not, manure or fertilizers may be applied, and clover or other
green crops turned under during the first two or three years of the
trees' growth, as will be described later.

The first thing to consider, when you have decided to plant, is the
location you will give your trees. Plan to have pears, plums, cherries
and peaches, as well as apples. For any of these the soil, of whatever
nature, must be well drained. If not naturally, then tile or other
artificial drainage must be provided. For only a few trees it would
probably answer the purpose to dig out large holes and fill in a foot
or eighteen inches at the bottom with small stone, covered with gravel
or screened coal-cinders. My own land has a gravelly subsoil and I have
not had to drain. Then with the apples, and especially with the
peaches, a too-sheltered slope to the south is likely to start the
flower buds prematurely in spring, only to result in total crop loss
from late frosts. The diagram on the next page suggests an arrangement
which may be adapted to individual needs. One may see from it that the
apples are placed to the north, where they will to some extent shelter
the rest of the grounds; the peaches where they will not be coddled;
the pears, which may be had upon quince stock, where they will not
shade the vegetable garden; the cherries, which are the most
ornamental, where they may lend a decorative effect.

And now, having decided that we can--and will--grow good fruit, and
having in mind suggestions that will enable us to go out to-morrow
morning and, with an armful of stakes, mark out the locations, the next
consideration should be the all-important question of what varieties
are most successfully grown on the small place.

[Illustration: A suggested arrangement of fruit trees on the small
place.] [ED. Unable to recreate in text format.]

The following selections are made with the home fruit garden, not the
commercial orchard, in mind. While they are all "tried and true" sorts,
succeeding generally in the northeast, New England and western fruit
sections, remember that fruits, as a rule, though not so particular as
vegetables about soil, seem much more so about locality. I would
suggest, therefore, submitting your list, before buying, to your State
Experiment Station. You are taxed for its support; get some direct
result from it. There they will be glad to advise you, and are in the
best position to help you get started properly. Above all, do not buy
from the traveling nursery agent, with his grip full of wonderful
lithographs of new and unheard-of novelties. Get the catalogue of
several reliable nurseries, take standard varieties about which you
know, and buy direct. Several years ago I had the opportunity to go
carefully over one of the largest fruit nurseries in the country. Every
care and precaution was taken to grow fine, healthy, young trees. The
president told me that they sold thousands every year to smaller
concerns, to be resold again through field and local agents. Yet they
do an enormous retail business themselves, and of course their own
customers get the best trees.

The following are listed, as nearly as I can judge, in the order of
their popularity, but as many of the best are not valuable
commercially, they are little known. Whenever you find a particularly
good apple or pear, try to trace it, and add it to your list.


APPLES

Without any question, the apple is far and away the most valuable
fruit, both because of its greater scope of usefulness and its longer
season--the last of the winter's Russets are still juicy and firm when
the first Early Harvests and Red Astrachans are tempting the "young
idea" to experiment with colic. Plant but a small proportion of early
varieties, for the late ones are better. Out of a dozen trees, I would
put in one early, three fall, and the rest winter sorts.

Among the summer apples are several deserving special mention: Yellow
Transparent is the earliest. It is an old favorite and one of the most
easily grown of all apples. Its color is indicated by the name, and it
is a fair eating-apple and a very good cooker. Red Astrachan, another
first early, is not quite so good for cooking, but is a delicious
eating-apple of good size. An apple of more recent introduction and
extremely hardy (hailing first from Russia), and already replacing the
above sorts, is Livland (Livland Raspberry). The tree is of good form,
very vigorous and healthy. The fruit is ready almost as soon as Yellow
Transparent, and is of much better quality for eating. In appearance it
is exceptionally handsome, being of good size, regular form and having
those beautiful red shades found almost exclusively in the later
apples. The flesh is quality is fully up to its appearance. The white,
crisp-breaking flesh, most aromatic, deliciously sub-acid, makes it
ideal for eating. A neighbor of mine sold $406 worth of fruit from
twenty trees to one dealer. For such a splendid apple McIntosh is
remarkably hardy and vigorous, succeeding over a very wide territory,
and climate severe enough to kill many of the other newer varieties.
The Fameuse (widely known as the Snow) is an excellent variety for
northern sections. It resembles the McIntosh, which some claim to be
derived from it. Fall Pippin, Pound Sweet and Twenty Ounce, are other
popular late autumns.

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