Garden Vegetables Planting Advice

Garlic

Garlic has excellent seasoning qualities, it belongs to the onion family. Instead of developing one large bulb, it forms a number of small bulbs, called cloves.

Plant bulblets or cloves 4 inches apart in the row. Plant, cultivate, and handle as for onions. Garlic needs a longer growing season than the onion.

Horseradish

While horseradish is hardy and will live year after year, it should be planted each year and treated as an annual for the best roots. It is an excellent relish, and only a few plants will be needed to supply the family.

Only in higher altitudes of the South will it do its best. It prefers deep, sandy soil. Avoid very heavy clays or very light, sandy soils. Horseradish is grown from root cuttings about 4 or 5 inches long. Get them from seed stores and set in late winter. Cultivate throughout summer and dig roots in fall. Even though best roots are obtained by planting each year, the common practice, when growing only for home use, is to let plants remain year after year, digging parts of the roots as needed.

Kale

Because kale is very hardy and will grow through the winter in the open in practically all of the South, it should be grown in every home garden.

Many like it as well as collards and it is probably a little more cold hardy. Kale may be planted in late winter for spring greens, but the fall planting is usually best. For the winter crop, plant from early September to mid-October, or about 60 days before first frost.

Where soil is quite rich, kale may be planted broadcast, but the row method is probably best. Plant seed in rows, just as for cabbage, and thin to one plant every 6 to 8 inches. Only cultivation needed is to keep down any weeds and grass that may come up and to prevent a crust from forming.

Leek

As the leek is somewhat milder in flavor, many like it as a substitute for winter green onions. Like onions, it requires a rich, well pulverized soil.

Sow seed in beds in late winter and transplant later, or sow in rows where they are to grow and thin to one plant every 3 to 5 inches. To get long, white shanks, plant in trenches 3 or 4 inches deep and pull soil to them as they grow.

By fall, enough soil should be pulled around them to make a ridge 4 to 5 inches high. Leeks may be left in the open during winter and dug as needed.

Lettuce

To produce a fall crop of head lettuce, plant in the garden and thin out to desired stand, or sow seed in a be in early August and transplant in row as soon as large enough.

The bed for growing plants should be partially shaded and located so it can be watered. Keep a sharp watch for green worms. Set or thin plants to 8 to II inches apart in rows that have been heavily fertilized with at least 10 pounds of a high-analysis fertilizer per 100 feet of row. Manure or compost is very helpful.

Water will have to be supplied if weather is dry. Sidedress two or three times with nitrogen fertilizer at intervals of 10 days, but do not side-dress after heads begin to form.

To make good heads, the plants must not suffer from lack of water and fertilizer. Handled right, this crop should head from late October to Christmas. Usually, little protection from cold will be needed for thisplanting.

Lettuce will stand less cold while heads are forming than it will before and after fully hard. At this stage it may need protection.

To have head lettuce for New Year's and later, sow seed in partially shaded beds in September and transplant to coldframes in October, setting plants 10 to 12 inches apart each way. Keep well watered. Apply nitrogen fertilizer as for the earlier crop. Do not let fertilizer get on leaves. It will burn them.

In most of the South only a canvas cover will be needed for protection at night and during severe cold spells. Polyethylene plastic offers great promise as a coldframe cover. It is about equal to glass in transparency and heat retention and costs less.

For the spring crop, sow seed in coldframes which have glass or plastic covering. Plant seed from Nov. 1 to late January, depending on location and weather. Set plants from January to March. They will stand much cold, but not hard freezes. When temperature is not expected to drop lower than about 20 degrees above zero, set them in the garden.

In Middle and Lower South, lettuce can be direct seeded from late November through February and thinned to desired stand after well established.

Whether grown in the open or in coldframes, lettuce must be well fed at all times and water supplied when needed. A shortage of either or both will result in poor heads.

Many prefer loose-leaf to head lettuce. For this, sow seed thickly in rows or on beds in the open from fall to early spring. Green lettuce contains more vitamins than hard heads, even though it is not as crisp.