Growing Vegetables..Planting a Good Garden

Radish

Although not especially valuable for food, the radish is quite tasty in early spring. It can be grown in 18 to 30 days. For a succession, make a planting every 10 days from February or March to April or May. Late plantings are usually not desirable, for in hot weather they become strong and stringy. Fall plantings can be made after weather is cooler. A rich soil is needed. Seed may be sowed broadcast if soil is quite rich, but the row method is probably best. Sow seed thinly in the drill, 12 to 18 seed per foot, and no thinning will be needed.

The so-called winter radishes are planted in the fall, about 30 days before first frost is due. They grow more slowly than spring varieties, and will stand much cold.

Rhubarb

Rhubard is a very heavy feeder and the ground must be made very rich with manure and fertilizer. Never plant on droughty land. Plant roots 4 feet apart in rows 4 feet wide in late fall to late winter.

Rhubarb can be grown from seed, but this is too slow for the home gardener. Roots are not expensive, and 10 to 12 plants will supply a family.

Early each spring apply a pound or two of a high-grade complete fertilizer around each plant. Before cold weather comes, mulch crowns and the whole row with 3 to 4 inches of stable manure or compost material, raking off early in the spring all except that which is well rotted.

Do not cut any leaves the first year and only a few the second. It takes this long for plants to become well established, when seed stalks form, cut them out, as seed production weakens plants.

Never use leaves of rhubarb, as they contain some acids that are injurious. Pull or cut leaf stems only a few weeks in early spring. Plants need all summer to grow and store up food for the following year.

After four to six crops have been harvested, roots should be dug up divided, and set in a new locations. Otherwise stalks will become too thin.

Salsify

Because it has an oyster flavor, salsify is often called oyster plant or vegetable oyster, when the roots are boiled, made into cakes, and fried they taste very much like fried oysters. Even when cooked like turnips, they are good, when used to flavor soup it tastes like oyster soup minus the oysters.

Plant seed thinly in rows in June or July, and thin to one plant each 2 - 3 Inches, if seed are planted in spring, stalks are likely to run to seed. The main growth takes place after cool weather comes. Leave in the ground during winter, pulling as needed, it is at its best only after being subjected to freezing weather. Sallsify is long rooted and for this reason ground should be broken deeply, at least 9 to 12 inches, and a rich well prepared soil is essential.

Shallot

The shallot belongs to the onion family and is grown in the same way. Use pieces of bulb called for fall planting. For late-winter plantings, use green plants as for onions.

Make fall planting from August to October, and let them stay in rows until early spring, when they will be ready for use. Harvest when tops begin to break over, cut off tops, let dry in sun a day or two, and store.

However, many braid them in long strings with tops on and hang in a cool, dry place. They keep easily when handled this way.

Sorrel

Sometimes called sour grass and dock spinach, sorrel is a much-prized green in some sections. Mixed with spinach it makes superior-tasting greens.

Sorrel is started from seed, is a perennial, and will last three or four years. Plant in rows during September or early October, sowing seed thinly. After plants are up and growing well, thin to one plant for each 1 to 2 inches.

If you want large plants with large leaves, thin to 4 to 6 inches apart. Plant in rich, well prepared soil. when freezing weather comes, apply a mulch of well rotted stable manure or compost. Rake it from plants in early spring and cultivate and sidedress with nitrogen fertilizer. Freezing weather does not seem to injure sorrel.

When leaves are large enough to use, cut off about 2 inches above surface of the ground. Then apply more nitrogen fertilizer, cultivate in, and another crop of leaves will develop. As many as three or four crops may be had in this way before hot weather.

Soybeans (edible)

During recent years, edible soybeans have come into favor. They are good either green or dry, but are best when harvested and eaten green, as are butterbeans.

Plant in rows 3 feet wide, soon after danger of frost has passed, with three to four seed in hills 12 to 15 inches apart.

The edible soybean is easily grown and is high in protein and vitamin content. Edible soybeans in the green stage are not easy to shell. To make shelling easier, put pods in a pan and pour in enough boiling water to cover them. Allow to remain in the water for 5 minutes, drain, and shell as soon as cool enough to handle. Pods cannot be broken open and the beans pushed out as with butterbeans.

Spinach

The high vitamin content of spinach, especially of vitamins A and C, makes spinach one of our most important greens. Calorie content is rather low, making it a good nonfattening food (same is true of most leafy vegetables).

Spinach must have a sweet soil. On sour (acid) soil it turns brown and produces poorly, if at all. Even if lime is not to be applied to other parts of the garden, put on a small amount where spinach is to beplanted if the soil is sour. Almost any kind of soil that is not too sour, is welldrained, and well prepared and fertilized will produce satisfactory crops.

Spinach is a quick grower. In addition to fertile, well fertilized ground, it should get nitrogen fertilizer once or twice while it is growing. Heavy applications of both stable manure and complete commercial fertilizer are advisable.

Plant in beds 6 to 7 feet wide with rows on top of bed about 12 inches apart. For a fall crop, sow seed about 60 days before first frost usually appears.

To have an early-spring crop, plant seed just before or soon after first frost date in fall and carry plants through winter.

Little or no protection will be needed except above the Cotton Belt. A straw or haymulch will carry it through. Another planting may be made if you want spinach in late spring to early summer. Such a planting should be made about six weeks beforelast frost usually comes. Sow seed thinly. Leave plants 2 to 4 inches apart. Whenharvesting, cut the whole plant.

Squash

A rich soil, preferably one to which plenty of well rotted manure or compost has been applied in the drill or In hills, is Ideal for squash, in addition, 5 to 10 pounds of a complete fertilizer per 100 feet of row should be applied a week or two before planting. Both manure and commercial fertilizer should be 2 to 4 Inches deeper than the seed.

Squash is adapted to either row or hill planting, space rows 5 feet apart and plant four to five seed 18 to 20 inches apart, later thinning down to one plant. In the hill method, make hills 4 to 4 1/2 feet apart each way, planting four to five seed in each hill and thinning later.

Do not be in a hurry to thin, as the striped cucumber beetle is likely to destroy many young plants. Dusting young plants several times will check this pest. Plant as soon as danger of frost has passed or possibly a week earlier.

Make a second planting of any but the winter type about a month after the first, and for late-fall squash plant eight to nine weeks before first frost usually comes.