FALL WORK IN THE GARDEN
If the garden has been well tended during the growing season there will
not be much rubbish to clear away and the absence of weeds will make
the harvesting of the winter vegetables a pleasure. A bright, sunny
day is best for digging all root vegetables, especially potatoes which
should be allowed to lie on the ground until dry enough for the dirt to
shake off, leaving the tubers clean and sightly.
After frost has killed the vegetables so that no further good will be
derived from them they should be pulled and piled in a heap to dry and
be burned; especially is this desirable if they have been infested with
any disease or insects during summer, but if free from any harmful
conditions they should, preferably, be put on the compost heap to add
fertility to the coming season's garden.
Wire trellises, poles and wires used for the training of peas, tomatoes,
cucumbers and the like should now be removed and stored away for next
year. All boxes, boards or sash that can harbor insects or the chrysalids
of cabbage or other worms, should be raised, cleaned and removed.
The winter treatment of the garden will depend upon conditions that
have existed during summer. If the garden has been free from insects
and disease it will have been a good plan to sow the entire area to rye
for a cover crop during winter, to be turned under for green manure
in the spring. This protects the ground from leaching during winter,
especially if the winter should be open, and adds materially to the
fertility of the soil, but if there has been trouble with insects and
disease it will be better to fall-plough, leaving the ground in furrows
so that as many as possible of the chrysalids and larvæ of the various
plant enemies may be destroyed.
If onion seed has been sown in August for early spring onions it
will be well to give the beds a covering of straw or marsh hay at the
approach of cold weather. The rhubarb rows may be banked with coarse
manure from the barnyard and the asparagus bed may have the tops
removed and the roots protected with manure; this will hasten the
production of shoots in the spring and make stronger roots.
If there is a bit of land available for early peas it may be ploughed
and the furrows filled with well-rotted manure, each furrow turned
over the manure in the next and the rows marked with sticks; in early
spring, drills may be opened with the hand cultivators and the seed for
the very earliest peas sown.
If the lettuce, carrots, beets, salsify, endive, spinach, parsnips
and radishes have proved satisfactory and any of the annual varieties
have been allowed to go to seed it will be wise to save the seed for
the coming season as the increasing shortage of seeds makes it more
or less problematical whether a supply may be forthcoming another
season. Lettuce, endive, spinach, Swiss chard, Chinese cabbage, and
radishes seed freely the first year, beets, carrots, salsify, parsnips
and turnips the second year and the mature vegetables must be planted
in the spring to produce seed. If there are good roots of carrots and
beets, these may be stored in sand in the cellar and planted out in
the spring when they will bloom and produce seed. The parsnips and
salsify left in the ground may be dug in the spring and reset where
they are to bloom and a few plants will give sufficient seed for the
home garden. The seed from the best tomatoes should have been saved,
a few melons, cucumbers and eggplants allowed to ripen and the finest
of the red peppers saved for seed. The sweetest and driest of the
winter squash should have its seed set aside for the coming year. Even
should there prove to be an abundance of seed this saving will do no
harm; the raising of seed of biennial vegetables is interesting and
should there be a real scarcity of seed one will be very thankful of
the forethought which makes the shortage innocuous as far as one's
own garden is concerned and, besides, one may do one's little bit by
supplying friends and neighbors.