If you wish to enjoy new potatoes early in the season, your seed
potatoes must be planted as early in the spring as the ground can be
prepared. Plant them one foot apart in the row and cover with the
corn plow. I would advise the planting of medium-sized potatoes in
preference to large ones cut to pieces. If large ones must be used
cut them a few days beforehand, so that the newly cut surface may dry
before planting, otherwise, there is danger of the pieces rotting
in the ground, especially if there is much rain immediately after
planting. The _Early Ohio_ gave us excellent returns for several
years in succession.
* * * * *
We will next take under consideration that portion of the garden
devoted to the vegetables requiring the greater part of the season to
mature. The most important of these are:--
EGG PLANTS, TOMATOES, POLE BEANS, BEETS, CARROTS,
LATE CABBAGE, CUCUMBERS, SQUASHES AND
SWEET POTATOES.
Sow Egg Plant and Tomato seed in a hotbed and remove the young plants
to a cold frame when three inches high, from whence do not remove them
till the weather is settled and warm.
Egg Plant will repay the extra care it requires, and should be in every
garden. Handle the plants very carefully in transplanting, and never
remove them to the open ground before the nights are warm. At the North
plants may be grown in flower pots plunged in a cold frame till the
weather is sufficiently warm. Plants should stand 2½ feet apart in
the row, and the soil should be very rich and warm. _New York Purple_
is the leading variety, but those who succeed with the _Black Pekin_
cannot fail to be pleased with its large, glossy fruits.
When all danger from frost is over, carefully transplant the Tomato
plants from the cold frame to the open ground, to stand two feet
apart in the row. As they grow tie them up on a trellis and remove
all superfluous branches, so as to give the growing fruit the benefit
of full sunshine, without which it will be of inferior quality and
scarcely worth the having.[21] Nothing can be worse than allowing
tomato plants to grow along the ground at will without any support.
Better it would be not to grow any at all than to degrade them in
that manner. Make a small trellis, four feet high, by nailing a few
pieces of lath across small stakes driven into the ground. I regard
_Livingston’s Perfection_ as an excellent variety, and have grown extra
large specimens of the _Mikado_, which, by the way, seems to have been
cast in the same mold as the _Turner Hybrid_.[22] Be this as it may,
I can heartily recommend either variety to all wishing to grow fine,
solid, enormous-sized tomatoes.
POLE BEANS, as the name implies, require poles or some other support
for the vines to twine upon. The poles must be set firmly, to prevent
being blown over by the wind. Where poles are not procurable, the vines
may be trained upon strings stretched up and down along two wires,
which are stretched and firmly fastened to posts or stakes, one wire
above and the other below. Pole Bean trellis, seven feet high, can be
purchased, and will answer the purpose for which they are intended.
The best pole bean of its kind is the _Large White Lima_. Being very
tender, it should not be planted before the ground is warm. The beans
will come up sooner if the eye in the seed is placed downward. The seed
should be lightly covered with mellow soil, as this bean, considering
its size, has less penetrating power in coming up than any other kind.
In rainy seasons I have covered the seed with coffee grounds, which
never became compact or hard from the beating rains, and nearly every
bean came up nicely, while those covered with earth were almost a total
failure.[23] The Large White Lima is generally considered difficult to
grow, but I cannot say so, as I have grown it without much difficulty,
and had beans to perfection by the pailful throughout the summer. Mine
were planted in very rich soil and the rows were about four feet apart,
three plants to a hill, and the hills two feet apart. If supported by
a trellis, beans should be placed one foot apart in the row. The above
applies to all pole beans, whether Limas or string beans. Of the latter
class of beans I have found _White Creaseback_ a variety of great
merit. _Southern Prolific_ and _Dutch Case Knife_ are also good. At the
North, where the seasons are too short for the Large Lima, the _Small
Lima_ or _Sieva_, as it is also called, should be planted.
Sow BEET and CARROT seed as early in spring as possible. Sow in drills
and thin beets to five inches and carrots to three inches apart in the
drill. To have Beets early we sometimes sow seed of an extra early
variety in the hotbed and transplant to the garden when plants are a
few inches high. The same may be done with early carrots. Sow _Early
Scarlet Horn Carrot_ for early use and _Long Red Coreless_ for fall
and winter. _Eclipse_ is one of the best early Beets and _Long Blood
Red_ is the very best late variety.
Sow late CABBAGE seed in a seed bed, when danger from frost is over,
and when plants are three inches high, plant them in rows three feet
apart, with plants 2½ feet apart in the row. _Late Flat Dutch_,
_Burpee’s Surehead_ and _Large Late Drumhead_ are reliable sorts.
CUCUMBER and SQUASH seeds should under no consideration be planted
before the weather is settled and warm, as the young plants are
extremely tender and sensitive to cold. Cucumber hills should be four
feet apart each way, and squash hills should be six feet apart. Scatter
about a dozen seeds in a hill, and when the second pair of leaves have
formed, remove all but three of the strongest plants. No fruit should
be permitted to ripen on cucumber vines, as this greatly weakens the
plant and prevents it from further setting fruit. Pinching off the tips
of winter squash vines when they are about three feet long increases
their productiveness. _Early Green Cluster_, _White Spine_, and _London
Long Green_ are good varieties of cucumbers. The list of desirable
squashes is long, but whoever grows the _Pineapple_ and the _Brazil
Sugar Squash_ for early use, and the _Essex Hybrid_ and _Hubbard_ for
winter use, will not be disappointed.
The term “hills,” as used here and elsewhere in this paper, does not
imply heaped-up soil, but simply means that several seeds are to be
planted together in one place, on a level with the rest of the ground.
This I have found to be better than heaping up the ground to form
hills, which soon dry out and are difficult to water.[24]
The only plant requiring hills or ridges is the SWEET POTATO. Throw
several furrows together with a plow and draw the soil up with a
hoe, to form a tapering ridge; two feet high and three feet wide at
the bottom. The plants, which are obtained by planting the tubers
in a hotbed, are planted two feet apart on top of this ridge. Being
of tropical origin, the sweet potato plants should never be planted
till danger from frost is over. One hoeing is generally sufficient,
as the vines soon cover the ridge, but these should not be allowed to
take root, as that diminishes the productiveness of the plant. Late
varieties are of better quality than the early ones.