Complete Text (Part 3)

a few times in spring (and any new sprouts cut out), will flower in midsummer, and by the time that they have finished the cuttings will be ready to bear. In fall will come the second crop from the early-bearing plants. Chards can be made (preferably from old plants) by cutting back leaves and all after the first picking, and when the large leaves have well started again, tying them by their tips, in a sheaf, and covering all but the tips with straw or hay, which is held in place by tying and with a little earth. The leaves will be properly blanched in about a month. In the fall the stems and large leaves of old plants should be cut down, the smaller leaves tied together over the heart of the plant, and the whole mulched with manure, litter or earth. Renew from seed or by cuttings. Do not keep plants after their fourth year. Use. — The bottoms of the flower-heads and of the large outer leaves of the flowers are the edible parts. Of Chards, eat the midribs. 8 THE BOOK OF VEGETABLES ARTICHOKE, JAPANESE (or CHINESE), is Stachys tuberjfera^ which see. ARTICHOKE, JERUSALEM, A tall plant, Helian- thus tuberoms, of the sunflower family, grown for its tubers, from which (since it does not produce seed well except in warm countries) it is grown. The tubers are gathered in the spring or fall; left in the ground after the second spring they will sprout and become trouble- Fig. 7. Tuber ^Jerusalem Arti- ^e, but can be eradicated choke. One-fourth natural siie. by swine or by cultivation. The artichoke will grow on poor land, and its advan- tages should be more generally understood. Of equal value with the potato as food, the Jerusalem artichoke is easier to cultivate and more productive, while stalks, leaves and tubers may be fed to stock. No choice of varieties is offered by our dealers, but there are im- proved French and Brazilian strains. Under good conditions COO to 1,000 bushels per acre have been harvested. Diseases and pests are seldom trouble- some. Soil. — The plant will grow on any soil that is not wet, but prefers a sandy soil, well drained; it will thrive on a poor or even gravelly soil, but if fed well will repay the expense. Distances. — Rows three to five feet apart; plants ASPARAGUS 9 in the row, eighteen inches to two feet. Or plant three by three feet. Depth, two inches. Plant usually whole tubers, or, if small, two or three together. If the tubers are large, they may be cut to two eyes. Plant as soon as the ground can be worked, or set out in the fall. Culture. — After a few early cultivations, the plant will usually shade the ground and take care of itself. For best results, take off all flowers. Harvesting'. — The plant needs a season of five months, to which slow growth has been ascribed its power of resisting drought. Dig when the tops are dead, taking care to get out all the tubers. Or leave in the ground over winter, and dig in the spring. Store in pits with less protection than for other root-crops. In cellars keep from air and light by stor- ing in sand, as the artichokes will shrivel and turn black. Use like potato. Vilmorin-Andrieux recommends it baked. When boiled it is excellent for salads. ASPARAGUS (Asparagus officinalis), as our longest- lived vegetable (a bed is expected to last a generation, and an English bed ninety years old has been reported), repays and demands much care in its early stages. While it requires and responds to heavy feeding, the old-time methods of deep trenching and heavy manur- 10 THE BOOK OF VEGETABLES ing before planting have been proved to be unnecessary, thus putting asparagus, for home culture, within the reach of every one who can spare the space. The habit of the plant is curious. Through the summer it accumulates, in its large storage-roots, the supply of energy to carry it through the heavy cutting of the following spring, when for weeks its crown, or central portion, makes shoots, only to have them cut as fast as they appear. Its storage-roots lie near the crown ; the feeding roots branch from them in all direc- tions and go to considerable distances. These feeding roots were formerly supplied with a great store of food by the growers, who packed manure solidly in deep trenches underneath the plants. It is now known that manure and fertilizer, worked into the upper few inches of the ground, are enough for the plant, so that the heavy initial expense of setting is no longer under- taken. Asparagus is a hardy plant, and, though originally found near the seashore, it will grow on many soils. It is grown from seed, which by the old-time careless methods gave fair results. The method of deep plant- ing, described below, is best for the home garden, as the plants are more vigorous and better able to resist rust. Thinning should be carefully attended to, for while at a few inches the tops of the plants will not interfere, at nine inches the roots are still likely to crowd. Deep planting where the plants are to stand ASPARAGUS 11 will save a year in their culture; commonly, however, the plants are grown in a seed-bed for their first year, to save space, and are then transplanted. Transplanting from the seedbed at the end of the first year is advi- sable ; it has been proved that two-year plants (although :^\ U I l H I if • /■■• "• ~ T v * i vvi Fig. 8. Seedlings of Asparagus. Natural size. commonly offered for sale by dealers) in the long run produce less than yearling plants. (See Farmers'* Bul- letin, No. 61.) The setting of the plants should be carefully done. They should be given plenty of space in their perma- nent positions; three feet by two is as little as should be given, for good results, since in a few years the roots will fill the whole space. While for commercial planting the roots are merely cast into furrows, right side up, 12 THE BOOK OF VEGETABLES for garden practice the careful setting of the roots in trenches is advisable. The depth of setting, which formerly was as much as eighteen inches (delaying the start in spring and more than doubling the length of each shoot, most of which was wasted) is now about six or eight inches. Once set, the plants are usually allowed to grow for two years before cutting, although even then the cutting in the third year should be light. It is possible, how- ever, with plants sown deep and not trans- planted, to take a light cutting in the third year from seed. Cutting should never be so heavy as to exhaust the plant ; the rotation described below is advisable for all plantations of any size, and the cutting season (which commercial growers occasion- ally prolong until July) is best finished soon after the middle of June. It is the habit of some gardeners to stop cutting Asparagus when the first green peas are ready to pick, thus allowing one delicacy to supplant another. Blanching for cut- ting is easily done, and varies, commer- cially, with the market demand. The number of roots to be set out de- pends upon the family requirements. Ma- ASPARAGUS 18 ture plants, under the best conditions, will sometimes yield three shoots daily. Shoots counting nine to the bunch are on record. It is safer, however, to count on two shoots to the plant, twenty to the bunch, in which case, with ideal gardening conditions, ten plants will yield a bunch a day. But in setting out a bed it must be remembered that there are periods of immaturity and old age when the yield is small, so that it would be wiser to count on twenty to twenty-five plants to the bunch as an average yield. And finally, if the growing, feeding, and care of the plants are not to be of the very best, fifty to sixty plants to the bunch may be necessary. The daily yield depends much upon the weather, cold nights often temporarily checking growth. The life of a bed depends upon the feeding of the plants, their distance apart, and the severity of cutting. Good commercial growers seldom keep a bed longer than fifteen years ; for the home garden, where greater care may be given, and the cutting is moderate, the plants may be kept considerably longer, or say twenty years, in good bearing, although many beds of much longer life are known. The replanting of a bed may be done on the same ground, by taking out alternate plants or rows of plants and putting in new, so that the bed will still yield a small crop. Varieties of Asparagus are few and not very sharply I 14 THE BOOK OF VEGETABLES distinguished ; results with any of them depend largely upon feeding, culture, and protection from pests and diseases. It is claimed that the Palmetto and Argen- teuil best resist rust; but all varieties are more or less susceptible to the disease, and experiment stations are now endeavoring to breed rust-proof kinds. Asparagus pests are not very troublesome ; they should, however, be rigorously suppressed, as by weak- ening the plants they make them less able to resist the rust. This, a fungous disease, has of late years spread alarmingly from section to section, until in places it has almost exterminated the Asparagus industry. Its control is now, however, better understood. In prac- tice, there is no need to distinguish between the forms of rust. Soil. — Although Asparagus will grow on any soil that is not actually wet or very stiff, it does best on sandy soil, well drained. A heavy land should be lightened by working in sand or sifted coal ashes; if wet it should be underdrained. For its preparation, see below. Permanent distances. — The rows should not be less than three feet apart; four feet is better; for field culture five to six feet is convenient. Plants in the row should not stand closer than eighteen inches; two feet is better ; three feet is not too much. In fact, up to planting four by five feet, Asparagus plants have not too much space, and in a few years the roots will ASPARAGUS 15 occupy the whole of it. For blanching, the rows should not be closer than four feet. From seed. — A gardener who wishes the best results will do well to grow his own plants. Seed-bed culture should be as follows : Choose rich, well-drained land in good tilth and freed of weeds by a few hoeings ; sow the seed as soon as the ground is fit if necessary, but best after the weeds have sprouted and been killed. Soak the seed. Sow the seed very sparsely, not nearer than an inch apart, at a depth of an inch ; rows should be eighteen inches or more apart. As soon as the plants have sprouted, thin to as much space as can be given to the plants, one foot if possible. Three inches apart is the least space that should be given in the seed-bed. Deep planting gives much better results; on the same land the deep-sown plants have in the same season resisted rust for some weeks later than the shallow-sown. For this reason, as well as to save the labor of trans- planting in the second spring, plants should be sown where they are to stand, if the space can be spared. There is no economy in not giving the space, as deep- sown plants will yield a light cutting in the third year from seed, as stated above. By this method sow the seed in trenches, six to eight inches below the surface ; cover with an inch of soil. Sow the seeds an inch apart, or sow several seeds near each other at the permanent distances. Thin to 16 THE BOOK OF VEGETABLES one foot if possible when the plants have well started, or to one plant at each hill. Give clean culture during the season, gradually fill- ing in the trenches to about half their depth. In the fall fill them completely. For the sake of clean culture it is possible to take a crop of low-growing plants be- tween the Asparagus in the first year. By this method, twice as many plants may be grown in the row as are needed, if thinned to one foot apart. In the second spring, every other plant may be dug out without injury to the remainder. The lifted plants may be set in another row ; it will take them some time to catch up with the others, which will yield in the third spring, while the transplanted plants should not be cut until their fourth. Of either set of plants the first cutting should be very light. Plants grown by this method should be large and vigorous at the end of the first year, fully equal in size to two-year plants grown closely together by ordinary seed-bed methods. Thinning is, with Asparagus, a difficult matter ; it is not sufficient merely to pull the tops. The crowns are formed almost at once, each with a single storage root, so that at even a few weeks the plants are able to send up other shoots if the first are pulled. It is there- fore necessary that the crowns should be pulled with the tops; if the plants grow to any size, the crowns must be dug out, a tedious process. ASPARAGUS 17 After planting, keep the ground from baking. The seeds are of very slow germination, and sometimes quick-germinating seeds are sown with them to mark the row. These should be sown only for this purpose, however, very thinly, and not for a crop ; as soon as the Asparagus shows the other plants should be pulled, and thinning begun. For the Jirst year feed the plants well, give clean culture, keep free of pests, spray against rust, and in the fall cut down the tops and burn. Asparagus under glass. — Excellent plants for the home garden may be raised by sowing three or four seeds in four-inch pots, thin to one in a pot; or by sowing in flats and carefully pricking out into pots. Harden off and set out when severe frosts are over ; set two feet by eighteen inches for transplanting the following year, or set where the plants are to stand, depth six to eight inches; fill in the trenches during the summer. Carefully selected pot -grown plants, started in March and set out in May at full depth, as here described, will give quicker results than any other plants. Preparing for the permanent bed. — Make the soil as good as possible, in richness and in physical texture. Use old manure to an almost unlimited extent, adding (to make it a complete fertilizer) per ton a hundred- weight of Florida superphosphate and thirty -five B 18 THE BOOK OF VEGETABLES pounds of muriate or high-grade sulphate of potash (or other chemicals supplying the same amount of available phosphoric acid and potash). At the same time it may be remembered that Asparagus may be raised in any ordinarily rich soil. The soil should be in the best of tilth and free of weeds. If very clayey, it would be well to work in a considerable amount of sand or fine coal-ashes. If acid, it should be limed. Subsoiling is not necessary except with a wet soil; but in case of a high water-table it would be wise to under-drain. Where there is a choice, the land should have a southerly exposure, and in any case should be open to the sun all day. In buying plants,, go to a reputable dealer, and if possible to one in the immediate neighborhood. Get plants, if possible, from an unrusted field. Only year- ling plants should be used; tests have proved that the future yield will be much larger. Setting. — Furrows should be made eight inches in depth, and widened at the bottom to about a foot. In these, at the required distances, the roots should be placed upon little hummocks made by the hand and patted firm. The depth of the crowns will then be about six to seven inches. Spread the roots out evenly so as not to interfere or crowd, and cover immediately with about three inches of soil ; press down firmly, and scatter a little earth loosely for a mulch. A pint of ASPARAGUS 19 water to settle the earth, and allowed to drain away before firming, will be beneficial. (While the water is draining, a second plant can be set, covered and watered. Return to the first, firm the earth and mulch it; set a third plant before finishing the second.) Time of setting: — Fall setting is occasionally practiced; spring setting is usual. Set in the fall when the tops are thor- oughly dry. Set in spring as soon as possible after the ground is fit. Before setting, the plants .should be kept from drying. —While Asparagus roots FiR w do stand much neglect when out of the ground, any drying is to their detriment. Until planting, they should be kept moist; if raised at home, only a few should be dug at a time, and these should be covered from wind and sun, carried to their permanent positions, and set at once. Staking. — It is a good practice, easily followed on small areas, to stake each plant. Set inch stakes or strong bamboos before covering the roots. When the tops are well up, tie them loosely to the stakes, and tie again as they grow.