Vegetables... Growing a Good Garden

Tomato

Not so many decades ago the tomato was a wild plant called love apple and believed to be poisonous. Now it ranks second among our most important vegetables. The calorie content is not high, but it is highly valuable for its vitamins A, B, and C.

While the tomato needs a fertile soil, too much nitrogen produces too much vine and too little fruit. Instead of using too much high-nitrogen fertilizer before setting, scatter a pound or two of nitrogen fertilizer per 100 feet on both sides of the row when first young fruits are half grown, and cultivate or water it in.

For the early crop, plant seed in a hotbed six or eight weeks before time to set in the garden, and transplant into a coldframe when 2 to 3 inches high, spacing 2 to 4 inches apart to produce stocky plants, or setting in small pots, plant bands, or sections of milk cartons.

If hotbed and coldframe are not available, plant in boxes or tubs in the kitchen or elsewhere for protection from cold. Containers, of course, should have holes in the bottom for drainage.

Usually it is more satisfactory to buy plants where only 25 to 100 are wanted for the early crop. Just two tomato plants for each member of the family can be made to produce enough "vine-ripe" tomatoes for use all summer.

You can even grow a bushel or more per plant. There will be some surplus for home canning or to give to the neighbors during late summer when they don't have any.

Important growing steps are

• method of transplanting
• mulching
• side-dressing
• disease and insect control
• staking or trellising

Mix soil, compost, fertilizer, and lime thoroughly as hole is being refilled two weeks before planting. A good start is important. Here is a method of transplanting that will help assure prolonged productivity of the vines.

First- About 2 to 3 weeks before setting plants, dig a hole about 18 to 24 inches across and 18 inches deep. Keep topsoil separate from the subsoil.

Second- Fill the hole with a mixture of 3 parts topsoil to 1 part well rotted manure, compost, peat moss, or thoroughly rotted sawdust or leaves. Mix with this about 2/3 pint of fertilizer, such as 5-10-10 or 4-12-12.

If the garden soil has not been limed recently, add also about 1/2 pint of agricultural grade lime. Mix these thoroughly.

A good way to do it is to

• put into the hole 3 shovelfuls of topsoil
• add 1 shovelful of compost or manure
• sprinkle on a little of the fertilizer and lime
• mix by turning with the shovel.

Then repeat these operations until the hole is full.

Third- Run or pour water into the hole to settle the mixture and dissolve fertilizer. Let stand about 10 to 14 days before setting plants.

Fourth- Fumigate or rotate. If the area has been in a garden for several years, you more than likely have root knot or other nematodes in the soil. These nematodes will attack roots of your plants, and can seriously affect production.

Fifth- Set stocky, disease-free plants of any variety recommended in your area. Pour 1 cupful of starter solution around each plant when it is set.

Starter solutions are high-analysis fertilizers sold by most seed stores. Some are highly soluble granular materials, and others are concentrated liquids. Mix as directed on the container.

Staking

Some pruning out of suckers is necessary when plants are to be staked. Pruning to a single stem is the most simple, but we like to leave two stems.

Here's how to do it

First- Drive stake securely into the ground about 4 to 6 inches from the plant before it starts suckering (branching out). Use sturdy stakes which are at least 8 feet long, longer, if you're optimistic or have a green thumb.

Second- As soon as the plant start suckering, choose one sucker near the ground and leave it to develop into the second stem. After this, all sucker should be removed by the time they are 4 to 6 inches long (suckers will develop on the second stem, too).

Third- Soft cotton or grass cord or strips of old cloth make good tying material. A good way is first to tie the string tightly around the stake and the make a loose wrap around the stem and tie again.

After plants are 3 to 4 feet tall, pinch off tips of suckers and leave the rest to help shade fruit from hot sun.

Fourth- Beginning about midsummer, it is desirable to provide good shade foreach cluster of flowers and fruit. To do this, you can leave the sucker next toeach cluster until it has developed two leaves and then pinch out the bud.Other suckers should be removed, however. Trellising with "hog wire" or welded concrete reinforcement mesh about 5 or 6 feet high is very simple.

Roll the wire or mesh into a cylinder about 12 to 16 inches in diameter and place it over the plant before it starts suckering out. To prevent its blowing over, fasten to the ground with pegs; or in the case ofhog wire, use two or three tall stakes for support. Removing some of the suckers will make it easier to apply sprays or dusts for disease and insect control.

Turnips and Rutabagas

Given a rich soil, the turnip is one of the easiest of all vegetables to grow, and the greens are equal to spinach and collards in food value.

It may be planted broadcast or in rows. Unless the ground is very rich, stick to the row method. A heavy application of stable manure or compost and commercial fertilizer will pay good dividends. For best results, sow seed thinly, and after plants are well started thin to one plant for each 3 to 4 Inches.

For the rutabaga, thin to one plant to each 5 or 6 inches. Plant rutabagas in July, the regular turnip in August and September. For a spring crop of turnips, plant in February or March or about 60 days before last frost usually comes. For turnip greens only, make three or more plantings from late July to early October.

Watermelons

Melons for home use should be either in the garden, If it is a big one, or in a field near the house. A sandy loam soil is best. After thoroughly breaking and disking ground, lay off rows 8 to 10 feet apart. Hills also need to be that far apart, with 1/2 bushel of well rotted stable manure or compost and a pound of commercial fertilizer well mixed in each.

When planted, seed should be 2 to 3 Inches above the manure-fertilizer-soil mixture. Make hills two or three weeks before time to plant and 2 or 3 Inches above ground level.

The watermelon is quite frost tender and should not planted until about the time last frost usually comes. Plant five or six seeds in each hill, preferably at different places in each hill, and after all are up and growing well, thin to one or two plants.

In cultivating, turn vines as little as possible. In fact, they should not be moved after they are a few feet long. It is best to germinate seed in a hotbed in small pots and transplant, with soil on roots, after weather has warmed up in spring. To grow large melons, the soil must be rich and the plants well fertilized, very large ones may be produced by feeding unusually well, and by pruning off all except a couple of the choicest melons on each hill.