How and What to Grow in a Kitchen Garden of One Acre (10th Ed)/Procuring the Seeds and Plants
PROCURING THE SEEDS AND PLANTS.
tables raised will hardly cover the original cost of the seed. The gardener who sells his products, unless his crops are of the best, will soon find his trade falling off, and will be compelled to seek new customers each market day. Personally, I have found it more satisfactory and productive of better results to buy each season almost all the seeds needed from some reliable seedsman, rather than to depend on those of my own saving. For instance, such as peas, sweet corn and other vegetables, where the earlier the crop is ready to market the greater the profit; these mature much earlier if the seed is procured from reliable seedsmen who have their supplies grown in the North. Such northern grown seeds retain their instinct to hurry up and mature in a short season, while in one’s own saving they begin even in the first year to grow more leisurely and to accommodate themselves to the longer season. In the case of peas, those grown in Northern New York and Canada, such as are sold by all our leading seedsmen, will mature from one to two weeks earlier than those saved in our own neighborhood. The northern peas are also generally free from the weevil or striped bug, which bores the large round hole in all the home-saved peas and destroys their germinating power. So it is with almost every known variety of vegetable; each has some special locality in which it reaches a higher degree of perfection than in others less favorably situated. While, of course, these facts are of interest to the gardener, they are only learned after years of experience, and it is the seedsman’s business to know the peculiarities of the different varieties, and to raise or procure his stock from the best strains grown in the most favorable localities. It is for the gardener to purchase from a seedsman whom he knows to be thoroughly reliable, and whose interest it will be to serve him with prompt shipments and carefully-selected strains of the vegetables desired. All this is equally true of the nurseryman or small-fruit grower from whom the supply of roots and plants is to be purchased. On no part of the farm is “Pedigree Stock” of more importance than in the kitchen garden. I will speak further on of the saving of seeds, and refer now only to those which it is necessary to buy. First, it is often a saving of several days to have the seed on hand, as it is sometimes impossible to foretell just when you will need the seed to plant a certain plot, how soon the ground will be fit to work, or how soon will come the opportunity, in the press of other work; if you have the seed at hand that part is always ready, and this is quite an item where the garden frequently has to be attended to in the intervals of farm work. Next, it is a cash saving to order all your seeds at one time. If, as is most frequently the case, you have to send to some large city for your supply, by procuring all that you need at one time, you have but one freight or express charge to pay. In making up your order, stick to the old varieties that you know suit your soil and your market; all the more if your market is your own table, for the greatest pleasure in gardening is in testing the merits of your fruits and vegetables with the appetite engendered by their culture. Also take into consideration the preferences of the household department as to the cooking merits of the different varieties. Do not experiment with your main crop of any vegetable, but do not neglect to try such new varieties as seem to possess merit, for the varieties are being continually improved by good culture and selection, as well as by hybridization or cross-breeding. To have a fine garden, the gardener must know the merits of all new and old varieties, and be as progressive as is the successful man in any other line of business. I know of nothing so interesting as watching the growth and development of some now and improved variety that has been recommended to the gardening public in the most glowing terms, and often in glowing colors on a beautiful colored plate. Although I have been “taken in” fully as often as the average gardener of my experience, I have been many times repaid all trouble and outlay by the numerous successes that I have met with and the great improvement in some of the varieties grown. Sometimes I have made quite a nice little sum out of these novelties, when I have been able to sell the selected seed of the new variety to some other seedsman or to my neighbors. In these new varieties, more than in any others, do you need to order early, or, instead of the seed that you desire and which is to make reputation and money for you, “being something superior to anything over grown before,” you may get one of those provoking little slips stating that the seedsman “regrets to inform you that, owing to the great demand, the supply is exhausted for this season, and hopes that the substituted kind will do as well.”
KEY TO DIAGRAM.
Row No. 1. 25 grape vines, planted about 7½ feet apart. The first three years these are trained to plain stakes or bean poles, the space in the rows between the vines being planted with strawberries, peas, beans or some other low-growing crop, to occupy the ground and insure good cultivation. When the vines have made strong canes and have reached the tops of the poles, a post is set at each vine and a trellis made, as described in the chapter on grapes. This row is six feet distant from the north boundary line of the garden.
Rows No. 2. These rows are twelve feet distant from each other and from the row of grapes, and are planted with blackberry vines, at a distance of three feet in the rows. Though this may seem like a good deal of “elbow room,” it is as close as they can be planted to keep them in good order; if planted closer they will form an impenetrable jungle by the end of the second season.
Rows No. 3. These two rows are planted with red and black raspberries, the rows also twelve feet apart, but the plants set 2½ feet apart in the rows.
Row No. 4. This is planted with rhubarb, sage and thyme, currants and gooseberries, and is twelve feet distant from the rows on either side.
Row No. 5. Is twelve feet from row No. 4, and is planted with asparagus, as described in the special chapter on that vegetable.
Rows No.6. These two rows are to be planted with spring-set strawberries for the next year’s crop, and are four feet distant from the asparagus and from each other. The strawberries are intended to be grown on the matted row plan, and to be cultivated with the horse cultivator; if they are to be grown in stools, another row can be planted between them, and the whole worked with the wheel or hand hoes.
Row No. 7. This row is for watermelons or cantaloupes, and the line of hills is six feet distant from the row on either side. The space in the row between the hills can be planted with egg plants, cabbage, lettuce or such other plants as may be desired.
Row No. 8. This row is a space four feet wide, with room for the cultivator on either side; this is raked fine and planted in four rows one foot apart, the first row containing beets and carrots; the second, onions; the
third, lettuce, radishes, etc.; the fourth, with a dozen plants of parsley, and the balance of the row in endive and parsnips. When the two middle rows have been cut out, the cultivator can be used to work the beets, parsnips, etc., in the outside rows.
Row No. 9. This row is three feet distant from the parsnips, and is planted with early cauliflower and early cabbage, with two plants of lettuce between each of the other plants, which are set 1½ feet apart.
Rows No. 10. These are four rows of peas, different plantings, two kinds, early and medium, in each row, in equal quantities, rows three feet apart. These are to be pulled out as soon as the crop is gathered, and two rows of celery planted six feet apart.
Rows No. 11. Here are four rows of early sweet corn, in four plantings of successive kinds, to be cleared off and followed by turnips, drilled in rows one foot apart, and worked with the wheel hoe; or the seed may he broadcasted after a thorough cultivating, when the ears of corn are well set, without clearing the ground. This is not nearly so satisfactory a plan as to wait until the ground can be cleared and drilled. The rows of corn should be four feet apart.
Rows No. 12. Two rows, 4½ feet apart, of Lima beans, with the poles about 2½ feet apart in the row.
Row No. 13. This row should have six feet clear on each side for the vines to run, and is to be planted with cucumbers and squashes. The space between the hills can be occupied with pepper plants or sweet corn.
Rows No. 14. Two rows of tomatoes, four feet apart.
Rows No. 15. Four rows of late sweet corn, four feet apart.
Rows No. 16. Two rows of sweet potatoes, five feet apart and five feet from the corn and pole beans on either side.
Row No. 17. One row of pole snap beans. About three kinds should be planted, that they may be had in succession.
Rows No. 18. Five rows early potatoes, three feet apart, plowed in when the ground is plowed in the spring. When cultivated for the last time, plant a row of late cabbage between each row of potatoes; when the latter are ripe, dig with a fork, clear the ground of vines and cultivate the cabbage thoroughly.
Rows No. 19. Sweet corn planted between the rows of berry bushes; a large late variety will be the best for this purpose.
Rows No. 20. Two rows of fruiting strawberries, to be plowed under and he replaced by peas sown in August. This, of course, applies only to a garden of at least a year’s standing; and the fruiting plants of strawberries will come in a fresh place each year. The rows No. 6 being the bearing plants next season.