Gardening/Plants/Vegetables
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A purchased vegetable is never the same as one taken from a man's own soil and representing his own effort and solicitude. The only requirements for growing vegetables is 'soil, water, and sunlight', however, for a truely productive garden you can be proud of a few general suggestions should be followed.
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[edit] Row row row your boat Planting
Historically, row planting has been one of the dominant methods of gardening. Many beginning gardeners emulate this method since it is what they have seen farmers using. Farmers often use rows because they are easy to make with machinery. Below is 'classical' advice for this method. If you have only a small backyard garden however, raised bed gardening will likely result in much better productivity.
The rows of vegetables should be as long and continuous as possible, to allow of tillage with wheel tools. If it is not desired to grow a full row of any one vegetable, the line may be made up of several species, one following the other, care being taken to place together such kinds as have similar requirements; one long row, for example, might contain all the parsnips, carrots, and salsify. One or two long rows containing a dozen kinds of vegetables are usually preferable to a dozen short rows, each with one kind of vegetable.
[edit] Raised Bed Gardening
In raised bed gardening, the soil is formed in 3-4 foot (1.0-1.2m) wide beds, which can be of any length. The soil is about 0.5-1 foot (15-30cm) above the surrounding soil, sometimes enclosed by a frame generally made of wood or concrete blocks (however this is not necessary), and enriched with compost made from leaves and grass clippings (again, not necessary). The vegetable plants are spaced in geometric patterns, much closer together than conventional row gardening. The spacing is such that when the vegetables are fully grown, their leaves just barely touch each other, creating a microclimate in which moisture is conserved and weed growth suppressed. Since the gardener does not walk on the raised beds, the soil is not compacted and the roots have an easier time growing. The close plant spacing and the use of compost generally result in higher yields with raised beds in comparison to conventional row gardening.
Raised gardening also guarantees good drainage and can be easier to weed. A common method is to shovel freshly tilled earth into rows and then smooth it out into flat, raised rows. While almost all plants benefit from raised beds, some do better in raised mounds, such as vine plants (i.e. squash, cucumber, watermelon) or longlived perennial vegetables (i.e. Asparagus).
[edit] Vegetable Selection
It is well to place the permanent vegetables, as rhubarb and asparagus, at one side, where they will not interfere with the plowing or tilling. The annual vegetables should be grown on different parts of the area in succeeding years, thus practicing something like a rotation of crops. If radish or cabbage maggots or club-root become thoroughly established in the plantation, omit for a year or more the vegetables on which they live.
It is by no means necessary that the vegetable-garden contain only kitchen-garden products. Flowers may be dropped in here and there wherever a vacant corner occurs or a plant dies. Such informal and mixed gardens usually have a personal character that adds greatly to their interest, and, therefore, to their value. One is generally impressed with this informal character of the home-garden in many European countries, a type of planting that arises from the necessity of making the most of every inch of land. It was the writer's pleasure to look over the fence of a Bavarian peasant's garden and to see, on a space about 40 feet by 100 feet in area, a delightful medley of onions, pole beans, peonies, celery, balsams, gooseberries, coleus, cabbages, sunflowers, beets, poppies, cucumbers, morning-glories, kohl-rabi, verbenas, bush beans, pinks, stocks, currants, wormwood, parsley, carrots, kale, perennial phlox, nasturtiums, feverfew, lettuce, lilies!
[edit] Tips and Tricks
1) After tilling the earth and forming the raised beds, buy and lay a relatively thick mulch cloth over the beds. They are usually made of a dark black cloth and should be thick enough so that weeds attempting to grow under them don't get very far due to the lack of light. Then, after designating where you want your plants to go, cut X's into the cloth and plant your seeds/seedlings into the holes. This method almost completely eliminates the need for weeding, but the initial expense for the cloth is not insignificant. The cloths can last for about a decade (or so the manufacturers claim).
[edit] Vegetables for Six (by C.E. Hunn)
A home vegetable-garden for a family of six would require, exclusive of potatoes, a space not over 100 by 150 feet. Beginning at one side of the garden and running the rows the short way (having each row 100 feet long) sowings may be made, as soon as the ground is in condition to work, of the following:
Fifty feet each of parsnips and salsify.
One hundred feet of onions, 25 feet of which may be potato or set onions, the remainder black-seed for summer and fall use.
Fifty feet of early beets; 50 feet of lettuce, with which radish may be sown to break the soil and be harvested before the lettuce needs the room.
One hundred feet of early cabbage, the plants for which should be from a frame or purchased. Set the plants 18 inches to 2 feet apart.
One hundred feet of early cauliflower; culture same as for cabbage.
Four hundred and fifty feet of peas, sown as follows:--
100 feet of extra early. 100 feet of extra early, sown late. 100 feet of intermediate. 50 feet of dwarf varieties. 100 feet of late.
If trellis or brush is not to be used, frequent sowings of the dwarfs will maintain a supply.
After the soil has become warm and all danger of frost has passed, the tender vegetables be planted as follows:
Corn in five rows 3 feet apart, three rows to be early and intermediate and two rows late.
One hundred feet of string beans, early to late varieties.
Vines as follows:--
10 hills of cucumbers, 6x6 feet. 6 hills of early squash, 6x6 feet. 20 hills of muskmelon, 6x6 feet. 10 hills of Hubbard, 6x6 feet.
One hundred feet of okra.
Twenty eggplants. One hundred feet (25 plants) tomatoes.
Six large clumps of rhubarb.
An asparagus bed 25 feet long and 3 feet wide.
Late cabbage, cauliflower, and celery are to occupy the space made Vacant by removing early crops of early and intermediate peas and string beans.
A border on one side or end will hold all herbs, such as parsley, thyme, sage, hyssop, mints.
_The classes of vegetables._
Before attempting to grow particular vegetables, it will help the beginner to an understanding of the subject if he recognizes certain cultural groups or classes, and what their main requirements are.
Root-crops--Beet, carrot, parsnip, salsify.
The root-crops are cool-weather plants; that is, they may be sown very early, even before light frosts disappear; and the winter kinds grow very late in the fall, or may be left in the ground till most other crops are harvested. They are not often transplanted.
Loose and deep soil, free from clods, is required to grow straight and well-developed roots. The land must also be perfectly drained, not only to remove superfluous moisture, but to provide a deep and friable soil. Subsoiling is useful in hard lands. A large admixture of sand is generally desirable, provided the soil is not likely to overheat in sunny weather.
To keep roots fresh in the cellar, pack them in barrels, boxes, or bins of sand which is just naturally moist, allowing each root to come wholly or partly in contact with the sand. The best material in which to pack them is sphagnum moss, the same that nurserymen use in packing trees for shipment, and which may be obtained in bogs in many parts of the country. In either sand or sphagnum, the roots will not shrivel; but if the cellar is warm, they may start to grow. Roots can also be buried, after the manner of potatoes.
Alliaceous group--Onion, leek, garlic.
A group of very hardy cool-weather plants, demanding unusually careful preparation of the surface soil to receive the seeds and to set the young plants going. They withstand frost and cool weather, and may be sown very early. Seeds are sown directly where the plants are to stand. For early onions, however, the special practice has recently arisen of transplanting from seedbeds.
Brassicaceous group--Cabbage, kale, cauliflower.
These are cool-weather crops, all of them withstanding considerable frost. The cabbages and kales are often started in fall in the middle and southern latitudes, and are harvested before hot weather arrives.
In the northern states, these plants will all do best when started early in hotbed, frame, or greenhouse,--from the last of February to April--and transplanted to the open ground May first to June first, partly because their season of growth may be long and partly to enable them to escape the heat of midsummer. Still, some persons are successful in growing late cabbage, kale, and cauliflower, by sowing the seeds in hills and in the open ground where the plants are to mature. It is best to transplant the young plantlets twice, first from the seed-bed to boxes, or frames, about the time the second set of true leaves appears, placing the plants 24 inches apart each way, and transplanting again to the open ground in rows 4 to 5 feet apart, with plants 2 to 4 feet apart in the row. If the plants are started under cover, they should be hardened off by exposure to light and air during the warmer hours of several days preceding the final transplanting.
The most serious enemy of cabbage-like plants is the root-maggot. See discussion of this insect on pp. 187, 201.
[Illustration: Fig. 295. The white butterfly that lays the eggs for the cabbage-worm.]
The cabbage-worm (larva of the white butterfly shown in Fig. 295) can be dispatched with pyrethrum or kerosene emulsion. It must be treated very early, before the worm gets far into the head (p. 200).
The club-root or stump-root is a fungous disease for which there is no good remedy. Use new land if the disease is present (p. 208).
Solanaceous group--Tomato, egg-plant, red pepper.
These are warm-weather plants, very impatient of frost. They are all natives of southern zones, and have not yet become so far acclimatized in the North as not to need the benefit of our longest seasons.
Plants should be started early, under glass. They should be "pricked off," when the second leaves appear, 3 or 4 inches apart, into flats or boxes. These boxes should be kept in a coldframe, to which an abundance of light and air is admitted on warm, sunny days, in order to harden them off. After all danger of frost is past, and the garden soil is well warmed, the plants may be finally transplanted.
If the ground is too rich, these plants are likely to grow too late in the northern seasons.
Cucurbitaceous group--Cucumber, melon, squash, pumpkin.
All the members of this group are very tender to frost, and they must not be planted till the season is thoroughly open and settled. The plants are not transplanted, unless they are transferred from boxes or pots.
Seeds must be planted somewhat shallow from early spring to midsummer. For the earliest cucumbers and melons, seeds are planted in frames. That is, each hill is inclosed by a portable box frame about 3 feet square and usually having a movable sash cover. The cover is raised or removed in warm days, and the frame bodily taken away when all danger of frost is past. In field culture, seeds are planted an inch deep, four to six in a hill, with hills 4 by 6 feet apart, these distances being varied slightly, according to location and variety. Good cucumbers are sometimes grown in hills surrounding a barrel in which manure is placed to be leached out by successive waterings.
The omnipresent enemies of all the cucurbitaceous crops are the little cucumber beetle and the large black "stink bug." Ashes, lime, or tobacco dust occasionally seem to show some efficiency in preventing the ravages of these insects, but the only reasonably sure immunity is in the use of covers over the hills (Fig. 229) and in hand-picking (p. 202). Covers may also be made by stretching mosquito netting over arcs of barrel hoops or bent wires. If by some such means the plants are kept insect-free till they outgrow the protection, they will usually escape serious damage from insects thereafter. It is well to plant trap or decoy hills of cucumbers, squashes, or melons in advance of the regular planting, on which the bugs may be harvested.
Leguminous crops--Peas and beans.
Two cultural groups are included in the legumes,--the bean group (including all field, garden, and kidney beans, and the cowpea) comprising warm-weather plants; the pea group (including field and garden pea, the Windsor or Broad bean) comprising cool-weather plants. The former are quickly susceptible to frost and should be planted only after the weather is settled. The latter are among the earliest vegetables to be planted. The leguminous crops are not transplanted, the seed being placed where the plants are to grow.
Salad plants and pot-herbs ("greens").
These plants are all grown for their, tender, fresh, succulent leaves, and therefore every reasonable effort should be made to secure quick and continuous foliage growth. It is manifestly expedient that they be grown in warm, mellow ground, well cultivated and copiously watered. Such small plants as cress, corn salad, and parsley may be grown in small beds, or even in boxes or pots; but in a garden where space is not too scant, they may be more conveniently managed in rows, like peas or beets. Nearly all the salad plants may be sown in the spring, and from time to time throughout the summer for succession. The group is culturally not homogeneous, inasmuch as some of the plants need special treatment; but most of them are cool-weather subjects.
Sweet-herbs.
The herb garden should find a place on all amateurs' grounds. Sweet-herbs may sometimes be made profitable by disposing of the surplus to the green grocer and the druggist. The latter will often buy all that the housewife wishes to dispose of, as the general supply of medicinal herbs is grown by specialists, and goes into the hands of the wholesaler and is often old when received by the local dealer.
The seedsmen's catalogues mention upwards of forty different herbs, medicinal and culinary. The majority of them are perennial, and will grow for many years if well taken care of. However, it is better to resow them every three or four years. Beds 4 feet square of each of the herbs will supply an ordinary family.
The perennial sweet-herbs may be propagated by division, although they are usually grown from seeds. The second year--and sometimes even the first year--the plants are strong enough for cutting. The common perennial sweet-herbs are: Sage, lavender, peppermint, spearmint, hyssop, thyme, marjoram, balm, catnip, rosemary, horehound, fennel, lovage, winter savory, tansy, wormwood, costmary.
The commoner annual species (or those that are treated as annuals) are: Anise, sweet basil, summer savory, coriander, pennyroyal, caraway (biennial), clary (biennial), dill (biennial), sweet marjoram (biennial).
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Flowerbeds || Grading || Walks and Drives || Borders || Lawns || Birds and Cats |
| Working the Soil |
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Choosing Plants || Plant Diseases || Fruits || Vegetables |
| Guide to the Seasons |
