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Home Vegetable Gardeningthe depth of several inches, but allowing the top of the roots toremain exposed, which will facilitate digging them up as required. Do not bury the cabbage until as late as possible before severe freezing, as a spell of warm weather would rot it. _Carrots:_--Treat in the same way as beets. They will not be hurt by a slight freezing of the tops, before being dug, but care must be taken not to let the roots become touched by frost. _Celery:_--That which is to be used early is blanched outside, by banking, as described in Chapter XI, and as celery will stand a little freezing, will be used directly from the garden. For the portion to be kept over winter, provide boxes about a foot wide, and nearly as deep as the celery is high. Cover the bottoms of these boxes with two or three inches of sand, and wet thoroughly. Upon this stand the celery upright, and packed close together. In taking up the celery for storing in this way, the roots and whatever earth adheres to them are kept on, not cut, as it is bought in the stores. The boxes are then stored in a cellar, or other dark, dry, cold place where the temperature will not go more than five degrees below freezing. The celery will be ready for use after Christmas. If a long succession is wanted, store from the open two or three different times, say at the end of October, first part of November and the latter part of November. _Cucumbers, Melons, Egg-plant:_--While there is no way of storing these for any great length of time without recourse to artificial cold, they may be had for some time by storing just before the first frosts in a cool, dark cellar, care being taken in handling the fruits to give them no bruises. _Onions:_--If the onions got a good early start in the spring, the tops will begin to die down by the middle of August. As soon as the tops have turned yellow and withered they should be pulled, on the first clear dry day, and laid in windrows (three or four rows in one), but not heaped up. They should be turned over frequently, by hand or with a wooden rake, and removed to a shed or barn floor as soon as dry, where the tops can be cut off. Keep them spread out as much as possible, and give them open ventilation until danger of frost. Then store in a dry place and keep as cool as possible without freezing. A few barrels, with holes knocked in the sides, will do well for a small quantity. _Parsley:_--Take up a few plants and keep in a flower-pot or small box, in the kitchen window. _Parsnips:_--These will stay in the ground without injury all winter, but part of the crop may be taken up late in the fall and stored with beets, carrots and turnips, to use while the ground is frozen. _Potatoes:_--When the vines have died down and the skin of the new potatoes has become somewhat hardened, they can be dug and stored in a cool, dry cellar at once. Be sure to give plenty of ventilation until danger of frost. Keep from the light, as this has the effect of making the potatoes bitter. If there is any sign of rot among the tubers, do not dig them up until it has stopped. _Squash and Pumpkins:_--The proper conditions for storing for winter will be indicated by the drying and shrinking of the stem. _Cut_ them from the vines, being careful never to break off the stem, turn over, rub off the dirt and leave the under side exposed to a few days' sunlight. Then carry in a spring wagon, or spring wheelbarrow, covered with old bags or hay to keep from any bruises. Store in the dryest part of the cellar, and if possible where the temperature will not go below forty degrees. Leave them on the vines in the field as late as possible, while escaping frosts. _Tomatoes:_--Just before the first frosts are likely to begin, pick all of the best of the unripened fruits. Place part of these on clean straw in a coldframe, giving protection, where they will gradually ripen up. Place others, that are fully developed but not ripe, in straw in the cellar. In this way fresh tomatoes may frequently be had as late as Christmas. _Turnip:_--These roots, if desired, can be stored as are beets or carrots. It is hard to retain our interest in a thing when most of its usefulness has gone by. It is for that reason, I suppose, that one sees so many forsaken and weed-grown gardens every autumn, where in the spring everything was neat and clean. But there are two very excellent reasons why the vegetable garden should not be so abandoned--to say nothing of appearances! The first is that many vegetables continue to grow until the heavy frosts come; and the second, that the careless gardener who thus forsakes his post is sowing no end of trouble for himself for the coming year. For weeds left to themselves, even late in the fall, grow in the cool moist weather with astonishing rapidity, and, almost before one realizes it, transform the well kept garden into a ragged wilderness, where the intruders have taken such a strong foothold that they cannot be pulled up without tearing everything else with them. So we let them go--and, left to themselves, they accomplish their purpose in life, and leave upon the ground an evenly distributed supply of plump ripe seeds, which next spring will cause the perennial exclamation, "Mercy, John, where did all these weeds come from?" And John replies, "I don't know; we kept the garden clean last summer. I think there must be weed seeds in the fertilizer." Do not let up on your fight with weeds, for every good vegetable that is left over can be put to some use. Here and there in the garden will be a strip that has gone by, and as it is now too late to plant, we just let it go. Yet now is the time we should be preparing all such Next Page |
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