=Herb Soup.=--Sorrel, eschalot, chervil, a little mint and parsley.
Boil all for a few minutes in a pint of milk. Add a good piece of
butter and salt to season. Boil all together for a minute, then pour it
over some crusts of bread in a soup tureen.
=Vegetable and Cream Soup.=--Boil three lettuce heads, four heads of
celery, two onions, a handful of chervil, a little sorrel, tarragon,
and thyme, in one quart of water till well stewed. Strain off the heads
half an hour before dinner; let the soup cool, and add one pint of
fresh cream, or quarter of a pint of cream and make up to a pint with
milk, with the yolks of three eggs; stir well, put it on the fire to
heat, and do not let it boil.
=Chervil Summer Salad.=--(1) Take two large cucumbers and one head of
celery; peel and slice, add a bunch of red radishes, six cold boiled,
young globe artichokes, cut into quarters, sprinkle with finely chopped
chervil, mix, and pour mayonnaise sauce over just before serving.
(2) Take three heads of fresh lettuces, one of celery, a little
chopped tarragon and chervil, and one or two carrots. Dress with five
tablespoonfuls of pure olive oil, two of white wine vinegar, one small
teaspoonful of salt, and half a teaspoonful of pepper. Stir well before
serving. Cold boiled haricot beans or green peas are a good addition.
Freshly chopped chervil can be added to any salad with advantage. It is
especially good with small boiled potatoes cut in slices, served with
either oil and vinegar or mayonnaise sauce.
CHICORY (_Cichorium Intybus. Compositæ_).
The seeds are sown in June in shallow drills in pretty rich ground. The
drills should be nine inches apart, and the plants thinned to three
inches. When wanted in winter the roots are lifted, the leaves trimmed
off an inch from the crown, and the roots stacked in dry earth or sand
in a dark cellar or frost-free pit. A sprinkle of water will start
them into growth, and with no other trouble the blanched leaves may be
gathered in about four weeks’ time.
=Witloef=, or Brussels chicory, is grown in much the same way, except
that the plants should stand six inches apart in the rows as they grow.
From November onwards witloef may be blanched, and the blanching is
done in the following fashion: A deep trench is got out as for celery,
though no manure is put in it, the plants are lifted and trimmed to
within an inch of the crowns, and are then replanted in this trench
about two inches apart, and the crowns eight inches from the level of
the garden. The earth is then returned, filling the trench in level;
over the trench a heap of hot manure three feet deep is piled, and the
heads will be ready to dig in about three weeks, or rather longer.
=Purée of Chicory.=--Cut off the outside leaves and trim three or four
heads of chicory, wash the inside of the leaves well, drain, cook
them in boiling salted water, put them on a sieve and pour cold water
on them. Press out all the water and then chop them finely. Season
one and a half ounces of butter with salt and pepper and a little
grated nutmeg. Stir the chicory and butter over a quick fire with a
wooden spoon, until they are reduced to a purée. Add two or three
tablespoonfuls of cream sauce and a little castor sugar. Any good sauce
can be added to this after it has been dished up with fried bread.
Chicory is good in salads with lettuce and other vegetables.
CHIVES (_Allium Schœnoprasum. Liliaceæ_).
This perennial plant is best propagated by dividing old roots in
spring, the plants may be put a foot apart, or may form a continuous
edging to a kitchen-garden path.
The leaves are used as flavouring for soups, or instead of onions in
salads.
CLARY (_Salvia Sclarea. Labiatæ_).
This is best treated as a biennial. Sow in April in drills eighteen
inches apart, and thin to the same distance in the rows. Keep the Dutch
hoe going through dry weather, and do not let the plants flag for want
of water.
The leaves are used as a flavouring for soups, &c. They should be
gathered in August, dried, rubbed through a sieve, and stored in
bottles for use.
CORIANDER (_Coriandrum sativum. Umbelliferæ_).
A sunny position should be selected, and the seed sown during April in
shallow drills twelve inches apart; thin the plants out to six inches.
The seeds are harvested in August, dried, and stored in bottles. They
are used as flavouring.
CORN SALAD (_Valerianella olitoria. Valerianacæ_).
This native plant is well worth growing as a basis for winter salads.
It may be sown in any odd corner during August, the plants thinned to
four inches, and used as wanted from November to March.
COUVE TRONCHUDA (see Cabbage).
CRESS (_Lepidum sativum. Cruciferæ_).
As soon as there is a mild hotbed available, or a corner in a house,
from January onwards, make successive sowings of this about every ten
days. Spread the seed on a garden mat, water well, and cut in ten days;
this avoids grittiness. If sown on soil do not cover it, but simply
press it down with the back of a dry spade. From March onwards it may
be sown in the open as often as desired. In October again resort to
cold frames, and later to heat.
AMERICAN CRESS (_Erysimum præcox. Cruciferæ_).
This biennial plant may be sown from March to September, and the
plants thinned to six inches. It is easier in ordinary gardens than
watercress, but greatly inferior to it in quality--being much coarser
and hotter in flavour.
WATER-CRESS (_Nasturtium officinale. Cruciferæ_).
Not worth growing unless there be a natural supply of water available.
If this be the case beds should be trenched and manured, and cuttings
(or seedling plants) put out six inches apart, and water allowed to
flow over the bed. Or the plants may be set by the margin of a stream
or pond.
To raise from seed sow in a shallow trench. Keep watered, and admit
water gradually as the plants grow.
It is used in salads, and as a garnishing with poultry and game.
=Cress Salad.=--Wash carefully any kind of cress or lettuce, and dry
without bruising; put them in a salad bowl with a whole raw onion;
shake over them a little very finely chopped chervil. Then put a pinch
of salt and pepper in a tablespoon, fill the spoon with olive oil, stir
very carefully with a fork till the salt and pepper are melted, pour
over the cress, then add two tablespoonfuls of good salad oil, stir
thoroughly, and add one tablespoonful of vinegar, remove the onion, and
serve.
CUCUMBER (_Cucumis sativus._ Ord. _Cucurbitaceæ_).
Though needing daily attention, the cucumber is well worth growing in
the small garden if the gardener can give the necessary few minutes to
its care morning and night.
Seed, both of a frame variety, such as “Telegraph,” and of a ridge
variety suited to outdoor culture, should be sown in the hotbed in
March. The seed should be sown in 3-inch pots, a single seed to a pot,
well watered, and a sheet of glass laid over to keep the moisture in.
As the plants grow, they will soon need to be shifted into larger pots;
they must be kept growing; warmth and moisture are essential. About the
beginning of May the cucumbers must be planted out in the frame, one
plant under each light. About four inches of earth should be laid on
the surface of the hotbed, and the plants put out.
It is good practice to stop the top of the shoots when they are about
eight inches long to induce the plants to throw back. Water should be
given in abundance, and air must be admitted for some hours during the
heat of the day. If the heat dies out of the hotbed too soon, the frame
must be protected from cold by mats at night, until the spring sunshine
is sufficiently strong to fill the frame with a store of warmth to last
the night.
It is as well to set the earlier fruit with a camel’s-hair brush,
conveying by its means the pollen to the fruit-bearing flowers; later
in the season this can be left to Nature and the bees. The whole
history of successful cucumber growing lies in the three words, water,
warmth, and air; by their aid first-rate fruit may be grown in a frame.
The frames should not have the lights drawn off or even pushed back;
this latter practice is one that gardeners are fond of pursuing, but
it is fatally productive of cold draughts. Pieces of board should be
prepared with step-like indentations, and by means of these the lights
may be propped up to varying heights according to the weather.
Never should the frames be watered less than four times a week, and in
hot weather water should be given both evening and morning. It is a
good plan to keep a pot full of water in the frame in order to ensure
that the water should be warmed to the exactly right temperature, as
it is a most unscientific proceeding to throw cold water over these
warmth-loving plants.
Ridge cucumbers will thrive under precisely the same treatment as
above described, but they may need a second shift into larger pots.
They must be kept in the frame, growing on, until the end of May, when
they can be planted out in the open, in richly made-up ground. It is a
usual thing to provide southward sloping ridges to grow them on, but
this is unnecessary if the gardener select some warm and sheltered
spot, where full sunlight falls most of the day. They will need daily
watering, and will throw, in a favourable season, an astonishing
quantity of small, well-flavoured fruit.