PERENNIAL CROPS.
The vegetables in this group have little in common except their
cultural wants or requirements, but these are so different from the
needs of annuals that it is convenient to group them together. Because
they occupy their places more or less permanently, it is necessary to
choose a spot that will not interfere with the regular plowing and
tilling of the farm or garden. Perennials need tillage in the spring
and fall and are fertilized by top dressings, at both seasons.
ASPARAGUS.
The chief of the perennials is asparagus, which requires a deep, rich,
moist, cool soil, with a warm exposure. It originally grew in rotten
sea-weed on the shores and is a gross feeder, so the soil cannot be
too rich. Sub-soiling to the depth of two feet is good for asparagus.
It used to be thought that a layer of salt at the roots made a good
fertilizer, but salt is no longer used in that way. It is, however,
used to keep down weeds in the asparagus bed, especially the German
salt known as kainit. This kills out weeds, saves cultivation, and adds
potash to the soil.
If the land you have is hard and coarse, you should prepare it by
planting it with some crop that needs a great deal of tillage, such
as potatoes, for two seasons before you plant asparagus. During this
time you should apply all the manure the land will carry, because, as
the bed will last for twenty years, in the Northern States, you will
have no other opportunity to put the soil in proper condition. Don’t
be afraid of making the soil too rich. Asparagus can take all you can
give, and will repay your generosity.
As you make your asparagus plantation practically for a lifetime, you
must exercise care and judgment in choosing the site. In a family
garden a long row, say 75 to 100 feet, if you have the space, at the
rear of the garden, is a good place. This not only puts it out of the
way of other crops, but it also gives you a good background in summer
and fall, for the herbage of asparagus is ornamental. Asparagus used
to be planted in beds, but under new methods of farming, this plan has
been abandoned. Rows are more satisfactory. When grown as a field crop
this allows of horse-tool tillage and saves much labor.
Asparagus roots are wanderers and reach out for food in every
direction, even more horizontally than perpendicularly, which is why
it is unwise to have rows closer together than four feet. Seedsmen
sell asparagus plants, but it is usually better to grow your own
plants, although they take so long to mature. Seeds may be soaked in
warm water for a day before planting and are then sown in drills and
covered about an inch deep. The plants should be thinned to stand three
or four inches apart in the row.
Give frequent tillage throughout the entire season, and in the spring
following they will be ready to plant in their permanent place. Here
they are set deep, in a furrow or trench, say six to ten inches, so
that the young crown of the plant is covered two or three inches deep
with loose earth or good fine compost. As the plants grow the trench
is gradually filled. If filled at first, the young plants might not be
strong enough to push their way up.
You will see from this that the asparagus plot must be deeply
sub-soiled, for if you do not have the land properly prepared at the
first, you will never have good results. Besides, unless the soil is
rich in humus, asparagus cannot thrive at all, for it requires a moist
soil at the roots all the season.
When you have planted your yearling seedlings you must give them
another year before you do any cutting. A few stray shoots may be
picked off, but it is advisable to wait until the plants are in their
third year before cutting. To cut earlier may permanently injure your
crop. It is also possible to injure it by continuing it too late each
season, although every stalk should be removed even if it be too poor
for use. The crop should be cut clean, and all cutting should be over
before July 4th, in the middle Atlantic States. After that the tops do
the growing and the more they flourish the better your asparagus will
yield next year, for it is from the foliage which springs up that the
roots and crown secure energy for the next season’s work.
The tops should be mowed late in the fall, and generally speaking it
is better to burn them than to allow them to rot on the bed as some
growers do, because when the asparagus berries are plentiful you are
apt to have trouble next season with seedlings; and even when this is
not so, it interferes with the fall tillage which is so necessary.
Just as the young plants were covered with earth and manure the first
year and thoroughly tilled in the spring, so must spring and fall
tillage be carried on every year. The manure put on the plants in the
fall, serves not only as a winter protection, but if not too coarse,
may be cultivated under in the spring and afford that much more
fertilizer to feed the crop. If it is too coarse for that, rake it off,
cultivate thoroughly and then cover again with litter or manure, to
afford nourishment and to preserve the moisture of the soil as well as
to protect the young shoots in case of late frosts.
The whole value of asparagus lies in its tenderness and succulence, and
the large shoots are most apt to have these qualities. The plant cannot
grow large shoots unless it has plenty of food. Only rich soil and good
tillage can supply the food needed.
Usually asparagus is cut off three or four inches below the surface
with a long sharp knife, but one noted asparagus grower objects to this
practice for two reasons. First, it increases the temptation to cut too
low so as to get the stalks of uniform length as the market requires,
whether or not of uniform quality; and second, it tends to waste and
to the injury of the plants. He would substitute for this practice,
careful hand-picking or breaking. The gatherer takes two rows at a time
and breaks off the shoots just beneath the ground at the lowest point
where the shoot will break with a clean snap.
When set at the proper distance of three by four feet apart, it
requires 3630 plants to the acre, and 1 pound of seed should furnish
that many plants. But seedlings vary so much, that some growers
recommend sowing from four to five pounds of seed to every acre, so
that only the best need be kept. A good yield is about 400 dozen
bunches to the acre. Asparagus is always sold in bunches, the stalks of
uniform size and length, and tied near the tops and butts either with
bark or string; though many growers are now using rubber bands as being
better for the stalks and a saving of time for the gardener.
Asparagus is usually sold green in this country, although if
artificially blanched it is just as tender. When asparagus is grown for
blanching it should be planted deeper than ordinarily. It is hilled
up with a furrow plow just as celery is hilled up, and blanches as it
grows. Blanched asparagus is in higher favor in Europe than here.
Asparagus is a native of Europe and Asia, and has been cultivated for
more than two thousand years. It belongs to the lily family and several
of its very near relations are cultivated in greenhouses for their
graceful foliage.
The asparagus beetle is the worst enemy and must be steadily fought.
In young beds, apply fresh air-slaked lime as soon as the larvae
appear. It should be put on while the plants are still damp with dew,
and only the greatest thoroughness can accomplish anything. Destroy all
volunteer shoots. As the beds are cut, leave some small trap-shoots
upon which the beetles will gather; cut these twice a week and destroy.
In hot weather brush the insects off and they will bake on the soil in
the sun.
It is so risky to use poisons on asparagus that is to be eaten, that
Paris green may be used only in very rare instances; then the mixture
consists of one pound of the poison to fifty pounds of air-slaked lime.
Two applications are made, about a week apart.
Some gardeners turn a hen with chickens, or a number of young chickens,
into the asparagus field as soon as the crop is cut. This is one of the
best ways of keeping down the beetles, and the scratching of the fowls
cultivates the crop. This will lessen your own work and increase the
value of your chickens to you.
Rust is the chief disease, and for this there is no sovereign remedy.
Every effort should be made to secure only vigorous plants, and in very
dry weather irrigation should be practiced, if possible. Early in the
autumn, cut, carefully gather together and burn, all affected stalks,
and all asparagus brush whether garden or wild. Read Massachusetts
Bulletin 61; Iowa Bulletin 53; Farmer’s Bulletin 61, p. 30.
RHUBARB.
Of all the perennial garden plants rhubarb is the easiest to grow, and
the most inexperienced may be sure of success. It is very hardy and the
roots remain in the garden all winter, even in climates where the frost
is heavy and the cold quite severe. But in spite of its hardiness and
willingness to flourish under ordinary conditions, rhubarb responds
quickly to good care and gives such enormously increased returns that
it pays to attend to it.
Rhubarb likes a deep, rich soil, thoroughly cultivated and fertilized
before the plants are set out. It is usually more satisfactory to
propagate by roots than by seed, although some growers prefer to raise
their plants from seed. Like asparagus, rhubarb will last twenty years,
if given a good start and if the roots are occasionally separated. All
this time it will yield large, tender, juicy stalks if the soil be in
good condition, and if a little tillage is given to the plant in fall
and spring.
Set out the plants in rows where the soil has been fertilized, is deep
and in good tilth. The best strains of rhubarb will not produce good
stalks if the land be hard or the subsoil high and hard. The rows
should be four feet apart to allow of horse tillage. The plants may be
from three to four feet apart in the row. During the growing season
they require the same sort of surface tillage that you would give to
corn or potatoes. If you are making the most of your rhubarb bed, you
will give it quite a heavy coat of manure in the fall, to act as mulch
to keep the soil from freezing too deep, and also to preserve its
texture. During the storms of winter, the manure leaches away somewhat
and fertilizes the roots, so that they are prepared to make an early
growth in the spring.
The season for selling is short, as early in the summer the demand for
rhubarb gives place to strawberries and other small fruits. It is the
grower who has it early in the market who reaps profit from rhubarb.
By means of the New Rhubarb Culture, rhubarb may now be forced for
market out of season, and then it brings the best prices of all.
Roots are left in the garden until they have been frozen and are then
transplanted to specially prepared beds and forced for the Christmas
trade. These beds may be in the open field if one has a system of
heating by steam forced through trenches, or they may be in specially
constructed forcing houses; or, simplest of all, they may be in the
house cellar, even though the floor be of concrete.
Rhubarb requires but little moisture and when it is being forced, it
need not go deep to find its food, if the soil it has is rich enough.
Three inches of earth will give it all the hold it needs, and if the
light is completely excluded, the growth will all go to stalk.
If you have a cellar bed, screen it off from the rest of the cellar so
that no light can reach it; a small kerosene-oil lamp with a chimney
that has been thoroughly smoke-blackened, will give all the heat
necessary to start growth. The stalks begin to shoot up looking for
light and will do almost nothing in the way of leaf-growth because
of its lack. In this way the whole energy of the plant is diverted
into profit-making stalks.[9] The roots that have been forced for the
Christmas market cannot be used again the following season. They need a
season’s rest. (Read J. E. Morse’s “New Rhubarb Culture.”)
But this absence of leaf, which is so desirable in forced rhubarb,
would be injurious to the garden rhubarb. In out-of-door growth, the
vigor and fruitfulness of the plants in any growing season, are largely
determined by the spread of leaves in the preceding season. For this
reason, after the cutting season is over, the plants are encouraged
to develop leaves; the smaller and weaker ones being cut off that the
large ones may grow still larger, but all seed stalks should be cut, so
as to preserve the vigor for next season’s growth of stalks.
When ready for market, rhubarb is tied in bunches of two to five stalks
and an acre will produce about 3000 dozen bunches. That is a pretty
good return when it requires only about a pound of seed to sow an acre
in the first place.
Rhubarb is native to eastern Asia and has no serious insect enemies or
diseases.
DOCKS AND SORRELS.
Those who are fond of very early greens will be glad to know of the
garden varieties of docks and sorrels which come earlier than any other
pot-herbs. They were originally imported from France where they are in
general use.
The best varieties are the Spinage Dock and the Large Belleville,
really a sorrel. The Spinage Dock is a week or ten days earlier than
the Belleville, has larger, crisper, greener leaves and a less acid
taste. Cornell Bulletin 61 says: “All these docks are hardy perennials,
and are very acceptable plants to those who are fond of early greens.
Some, at least, of the cultivated docks, can be procured of American
seedsmen.”
ARTICHOKE.
The Jerusalem artichoke, the variety best known in this country, and
the French Globe or true artichoke, have little in common, yet both
are used for food. The eatable part of the true artichoke is the
flower-head, which should be cut before it has fully spread, else it
will be woody. It is a strong-growing, upright, perennial, reaching
a height of four or five feet, with large leaves. It is not always
satisfactory to plant from seeds, as they cannot be guaranteed to
reproduce truly. But when seed is sown it may be where the plants are
to stand or in hot-beds.
The advantage of hot-bed sowing is that the plants may give heads the
first year, while those planted in the garden require two seasons to
produce eatable heads. The best means of propagation are the suckers
which grow freely about the root crowns. Suckers are planted where the
plants are to mature and give heads the second year.
Although the artichoke is perennial, it weakens after yielding two or
three crops, so that it is well to replant part of the bed each year,
thus keeping a succession of vigorous plants. In cold climates the
heads are protected during the winter with a mulch of straw or litter.
When boiled tender and served with Hollandaise sauce, made of melted
butter and flour, the artichoke is a delicious vegetable, but it is
comparatively little known in this country.
The Jerusalem artichoke is grown for its tubers, which are underground
as in potatoes, and it needs much the same preparation and tillage as
potatoes. It is usually fed to stock, especially pigs, but of late it
is coming to be recognized as a good food for man, too. “If you will
feed the pig, the pig will feed you,” but we need not go through that
troublesome process; for a varied vegetable diet alone is healthy for
most persons—and much cheaper.
Artichokes are really more nourishing than potatoes, and the improved
varieties may be used in place of potatoes. The plant is perfectly
hardy, being native to the Northern States and Canada, and will
take care of itself when once started, although it is better for
having its roots divided, by digging them up. It will run wild, if
wholly neglected, and become a troublesome weed, propagating itself
indefinitely by means of its straggling, far-reaching, tuber-bearing
roots. The only way to cure this damage is by thorough tillage, the
first of which consists of fall plowing and the turning of pigs into
the patch to root up the tubers.
The artichoke is more prolific than the potato, and will yield all
the way from 250 bushels to 1000 bushels per acre with only ordinary
care. For eating, the best variety is the Improved White French. The
Jerusalem artichoke is not likely soon to supplant any other garden
crop in this country, but it might well become a regular garden crop,
as it will grow on land too poor for most other plants, requires little
care, yields heavily, and is good food for man and stock.
SEA-KALE.
Sea-kale is one of the least known of the perennial garden
crops, although where it is known it is well liked. It is a low,
fleshy-stemmed plant whose shoots and young leaves are blanched and
eaten as asparagus is. The plants may be grown from seed; in which case
all but one main stem are to be cut off as soon as they appear; or it
may be grown by division of roots. In either case, it is well not to
cut from the plant until the second season. The shoots are blanched
either by covering the crowns with fine, loose soil for a foot or even
more, in the early spring, or by covering the crowns with a box and
allowing the shoots to grow up in the dark.
After the young shoots have been picked off, the plants are allowed to
grow as they will; for, like asparagus and rhubarb, the vigor, size
and yield of the next season depend upon this season’s growth of leaf
and root. It flourishes best in deep, rich and rather moist soil. The
plants should not be less than three feet apart each way, and they are
much benefited by an autumn dressing of light manure or straw.
FOOTNOTES:
[9] NOTE.—You can get long stalks in the garden by putting a small
cask, or half-barrel, with the ends knocked out, over the plant. The
stalks will grow to the top and blanch some while growing.