Part 7
If you have enough frames, plant the three different varieties of lettuce in different beds. They will mature in the rotation named. Between the rows of the Boston Market and the Big Boston, onion seeds may be sown. When selecting lettuce to transplant, choose the strong seedlings and from different parts of the rows, so that when the surplus plants are thinned out, the rest will be left to grow undisturbed.
The mustard and cress will be ready to cut in from seven to ten days after the mustard is sown. Cut the cress with a pair of scissors a little above the soil and it will spring again and again. Mustard must be sowed after each gathering, but as it only takes half the time to develop, it will be ready when the second crop of cress is. Mustard should be allowed to grow more than an inch and a half above the ground. One important thing to remember in running a succession of hotbed crops, is that the heating power of manure only lasts about seven weeks. Beans, beets and Swiss chard, and such hardy things, which require two months or more to mature, do not suffer through the decrease of heat, in fact, will do just as well, or better, in a spent hotbed or cold-frame, which is just a hotbed without any heating material. But if very cold weather sets in, bank up heavily around the sides and ends with fresh manure, to keep the cold from penetrating the bed-box, and using extra heavy mats over the sash at night.
Eggplant, tomatoes and peppers should be started the last week in February, and celery, cabbage, cauliflower and Brussels sprouts about the first of March. One bed should be devoted to onion seed (sown at the end of February), and seedlings can be pricked out into another bed or cold-frame when about two inches high, and will be strong bulbs to plant out in the garden in April. Cucumbers, muskmelons and squash can all be started on sods in a hotbed, early in April, and will be sturdy plants by May 20th.
HOW TO GROW ASPARAGUS
Why every garden has not an asparagus-bed is an unfathomable mystery to me. It is universally liked; even epicures consider it a delicacy. It is ready for table use in very early spring, when everyone craves fresh vegetables, and it is as easy to grow as any other vegetable after it is once established.
Probably the last word explains the mystery. It takes three years to establish, or, rather, to bring it to the profitable stage. A light crop can be gathered the second season, so the home table profits almost as quickly as in the case of artichokes or strawberries. Whatever the cause, the fact remains that an asparagus-bed is rarely found on a farm. Yet the pecuniary advantages to be reaped from asparagus-growing are sufficient to satisfy the most ambitious gardener.
Three years after our first bed from seed was started we sold three hundred and fifty-four bunches at an average of forty cents a bunch. Early in the season we got fifty cents, toward the end of the season some were sold for thirty-five cents. Since then the annual returns have never dropped below two hundred and eighty-six dollars. Manuring and cultivating cost approximately twelve dollars a year. The bed occupied about a quarter of an acre of ground. Having a number of egg customers, we sell direct and so get the full price, but even wholesale prices range from fifteen to twelve cents.
There are two ways of starting beds, sowing seed or setting out plants. One-year-old plants will cost from sixty cents to a dollar a hundred. Planted in April and well cared for, they will provide several dishes for the home table the following spring and nearly a full crop the second spring. Seed sowed at the same time will take a year longer, but after that will give a larger yield than the transplanted plants and, as asparagus-beds are productive for fifteen or twenty years, the one-year loss in the beginning is an economy. But it is well to set out a few plants, simply because in the country one cannot get Southern vegetables, which come into the city early in the spring, and, therefore, should try to have a home supply as quickly as possible.
In selecting ground for an asparagus-bed, it must be remembered that it is a permanent crop, and cannot be transplanted after it is established. It will grow on any ordinary garden soil which is well drained, but, when possible, heavy subsoil with light sand or loam above it should be selected, as it will invariably produce an earlier crop each year than heavy ground. The soil should slope to the south or southwest, and a shelter from the northeast is also desirable. For our large market bed we used land that had been under cultivation for two years. The preceding crops had been corn, oats and potatoes, so it had been thoroughly worked.
After the potatoes were harvested in the fall, the field was ploughed, and barn-yard manure scattered broadcast over it. Early the following spring the ground was again ploughed, to turn in the manure, and harrowed each way to thoroughly break up and pulverise the soil. Should you be compelled to use ground that has not been worked previously, and is of a heavy, damp character, it would be well to plough as early as possible in summer, if necessary, using a subsoil plough, to break the ground to a depth of fifteen or sixteen inches.
Harrow to smooth the surface, and repeat the harrowing about every three weeks until October, when it should be ploughed again to the depth of six or seven inches, manured and left until spring. After the spring harrowing the rows must be marked out five feet apart and running from north to south. Use the plough back and forth in the same furrow to make a wide trench, which should be six or seven inches deep and about a foot wide. If much of the soil falls back into the trench, remove it with a spade or broad hoe, then plant seed about three inches apart. Keep the rows free from weeds all through the season and the ground loose around the plants.
It is desirable to utilise the space between the rows, as it insures the ground being well cultivated. Each space will accommodate two rows of carrots, onions or lettuce, or one row of cabbage. In the fall, when the tops of the asparagus begin to die, they must be cut off and burned.
The following spring the ground between the rows should be manured and ploughed, or spaded if the place is an inclosed garden and a plough cannot be used. Strong roots may throw very good-sized sprouts, but don’t be tempted to gather them, for their removal will stimulate the plant to throw up more stalks than its age warrants, and the result will be either death or a weakly, unprofitable existence for several seasons. Not more than one row of carrots or onions should be grown between the rows the second season, and, unless space is of great value, it is as well not to use it at all.
Cultivation must be kept up all through the growing season, to destroy weeds and keep the ground in condition. Many amateurs have an idea that hoeing or cultivating of any sort is solely to destroy weeds, which is a great mistake. Stirring the surface soil breaks the crust, and the powdered earth forms a mulch which keeps the lower soil moist, a condition which liberates the mineral qualities which constitute plant-food.
The second spring after sowing seed a light crop of stalks may be gathered, say two or three from each hill, but not more. Then allow the stalks to grow and feather out until they assume their full fern-like form. In June apply a moderate quantity of barn-yard manure between the rows if the ground is not being used. If it is occupied by a crop, use commercial fertiliser composed of equal parts of nitrate of soda, sulphate of potash and wood-ashes. Scatter each side of whatever vegetable occupies the space between the rows and work the fertiliser well into the soil.
In August, when the crop is harvested, apply a moderately heavy dressing of well-rotted barn-yard manure. Late in October cut down stalks and burn, as the year before; then plough or spade between the rows. The third spring will bring the bed to a profitable state, though it will not reach its full yearly capacity for another year. Use the one-horse cultivator or hoe between the rows as early as the ground can be worked. Draw the earth slightly from the roots at first, to permit the sun to warm the ground around the roots and awaken the plant to life.
A week or so later, if white asparagus is desired, the soil must be again drawn up over the plants and each row hilled up so as to bleach the sprouts. The operation will need repeating about once a week all through the cutting season, which should not last more than three weeks on so young a bed, though in future years it may be kept up six or even eight weeks.
After the cutting season throw down the ridges made by the hilling-up and apply either barn-yard manure or commercial fertiliser, repeating the application about July 1st. If green asparagus is desired, the only difference in treatment consists in omitting the hilling-up.
After the third year care of the bed consists of manuring and cultivating. We have found it best to use barn-yard manure and commercial fertiliser alternately. Sowing the seed in trenches or deep furrows is done to insure the crowns being three or four inches below the surface when they have developed considerable growth, which would not be the case if they were sown on the level ground to commence with. Like its cousin, the lily of the valley, asparagus sends out roots and stalks from a heart or crown, which must be underground where it is moist and dark.
Asparagus may be canned like any other vegetable for winter use; pack, cut ends down, in glass jars, fill jars with cold water, put the lids on loosely, stand in hot water, boil three hours, fill the jars to the brim with boiling water and screw lids down tight.
If you consider that raising from seed is beyond your patience, buy plants from a reliable grower. Most nurserymen’s catalogues quote one and two year plants, but the experienced are unanimous in preferring strong one-year-old plants, affirming that they stand being transplanted better than the older ones. The ground must be prepared as for seed. When the plants arrive, put them into water for twelve or twenty-four hours to soften. Set the plants two feet apart in trenches, being careful to have the crowns right side up. If you hold up a plant in your hand you will notice that the thick fleshy roots all proceed from the heart, or crown, as it is called, and droop downward, and that on the other side of the crown there are what look like small rootlets. These are really the dry stalks from the preceding season and buds of the coming season, and are often mistaken for roots and placed downward in the trenches instead of upward, which of course they should be.
The proper way to plant is to make a small mound at the bottom of the trench--about two handfuls of soil--and spread out the roots, and place the crown on the mound of earth in such a way that the roots envelope it. Press them firmly into place, and cover until the crown is about two inches below the soil. If it happens to be a dry season, water regularly until growth is well established.
Asparagus must be cut very carefully, otherwise the embryo shoot may be destroyed or the crown itself killed. When only small quantities are being removed each day, the best plan is to pass the thumb and forefinger down the spur an inch or two into the ground, then bend outward, and it will snap below the surface of the earth without injuring the plant in any way. When large beds are being cut for market, a knife will have to be used, as it does the work so much more quickly. Asparagus-knives are of special shape. There are several on the market, and they will be found advertised in all seedmen’s catalogues. The average price is fifty cents.
Rust, a fungus disease, has become very prevalent during the last few years, attacking both young and old beds. As the name implies, it looks like rust on the stalks and spoils the appearance for market, besides injuring the plant and materially affecting the crop.
It has been suggested by many who have studied the subject that rust originates on decaying stalks. For that reason it is advisable to burn the dead stalks as soon as they are cut away in the fall, instead of allowing them to decay on a compost-heap, as one does with other garden trimmings. Spraying with Bordeaux mixture after the cutting season each year has been recommended as a preventive. Once established, there seems no remedy. We have a neighbour whose beds were seriously affected seven or eight years ago. He tried a number of ordinary washes and powders, but they seemed useless. Six years ago he started new beds and adopted our plan of alternating commercial fertiliser with barn-yard manure as we had never had any sign of rust, and he attributed it to the ashes in the mixture we used, thinking that they purified the ground.
Another enemy is the asparagus-beetle--an attractive-looking insect, jet black, with red, yellow and blue markings. It remains hidden in brush or rubbish through the winter and comes out in the first warm days of spring to lay its eggs, always choosing the young, tender sprouts for their resting-place. In a few days the young grubs hatch and feed on the asparagus, boring small holes, entirely ruining the appearance of the stalks, and occasionally descend to the crown of the plant itself. It only takes the grubs a month to pass through the several stages which bring them to maturity, so that if only one or two beetles survive the winter, there may be an army by the time the beds are bearing fully. Allowing poultry to run on the beds in the fall and winter is about the safest and easiest way of scotching the pests, though dusting with air-slaked lime in the early spring is recommended, and some authorities suggest the cutting of the beds as soon as shoots develop in the early spring, hoping in that way to destroy the eggs. This is rather an expensive remedy, as it means burning up the early market crop, which brings the best prices.
HOW TO GROW MUSHROOMS
Anyone who has a good cellar where an even temperature can be maintained can grow mushrooms for home use, but if they are to be raised in large quantities for market, an appropriate building must be given over to their exclusive use. We have been successful for several seasons in growing mushrooms in an amateurish way, but it was not until a large root-cellar was left vacant that we thought of the feasibility of adding them to our market products.
The farm we were lucky enough to acquire was one of the old-fashioned, practical places, with a full equipment of buildings. Under the cow-barn there was a stone basement, used for the winter storing of root crops. After our dairy herd developed, it seemed wise to use ensilage instead of roots during the winter. So we built a silo, and this left the store-house vacant. It was eighty feet long and fifteen feet wide, so, after we conceived the mushroom idea, we partitioned off thirty feet to retain as a storing-place for household vegetables and fitted up the other fifty feet with mushroom-beds.
We put in a brooder-house stove and pipe system, which cost one hundred and twenty dollars. The lumber for the beds cost an additional thirty dollars, extra manure twenty-two dollars and spawn fifty dollars--two hundred and twenty-two dollars in all. Four months later we had received four hundred and forty-five dollars. Since then the returns have fluctuated between four and five hundred dollars, and we estimate that it costs one hundred and twenty-five dollars per season to produce the crop. So I think that mushrooms can be considered profitable when run in connection with poultry or general farming, especially as they come in at a season of the year when there is very little else to be attended to, and, what is more, the only heavy work is preparing manure and compost for the beds, and that any ordinary farm man can accomplish. The rest is all so light and easy that a young girl or a delicate woman can attend to it without fatigue.
It is not necessary to have an expensive stone or brick building. We have a neighbour who uses part of an old cow-stable, and a man in the suburbs of New York, who grows a quantity each season, has simply a dugout with rough board walls, two feet above the ground, and an A-shaped roof--all covered with tar-paper, a place that could not have cost more than seventy-five dollars at the very most. A shed or outbuilding of any kind will answer if it is weather-proof and can be kept at a temperature of fifty-five or sixty in zero weather without much expense.
Don’t be tempted to start on any elaborate scale in the house-cellar, for the odour from the beds whilst the manure is heating prior to planting-time will permeate the entire house and cling to carpets and draperies in a most horrible way. Of course, this does not obtain when only a few are to be raised for the home table, because shallow boxes can be used and need not be carried into the cellar until the objectionable period is past.
When a special house is used, the beds may be made on the floor, a great depth of manure used and artificial heat dispensed with. But it is not a good or economical plan, for the necessary amount of stable manure would cost as much as fuel, necessitate close watching and the result would not be as satisfactory, so we will only consider the approved method of benches and artificial heat, which is generally adopted by the modern market grower.
The benches in our house run on each side, leaving walks three feet wide through the centre of the house, two feet along the side walls. Having the three walks enables us to gather from each side of the beds, which is almost a necessity when the beds are four feet wide. With a narrower house and beds, a centre path would be sufficient, but it should not be less than three feet wide for convenience when filling and emptying beds.
The benches are made of two-by-two studding and rough hemlock boards, the studding being used for the upright supports which go from floor to ceiling, every five feet of the entire length and on each side of the house. Supports are run diagonally between each four uprights on each side of the house, to make a foundation for the floor of the beds, as well as to strengthen the entire structure. The hemlock boards are used for the sides and bottoms of the beds, which are two feet above the ground. Beds should be sixteen inches deep, but we used one row of boards nine inches wide and another row six inches wide, as the boards happened to be cut in those sizes.
The second tier of beds, which were added a year later, were a foot and a half above the top of the first tier and only twelve inches deep, but have proved quite as satisfactory in every way, and as the shallow beds take less manure, I think it is safe to advise beginners to adopt the latter depth for beds in a house where artificial heat is used.
The bottoms and sides of the beds should be fixed so that they can be easily removed, as it facilitates the work of emptying beds, which has to be done every spring. Any heating apparatus which can be easily arranged and depended upon can, of course, be used, but I think the stove and pipes which are specially made for poultry plants are the most convenient, as their construction is so simple that any handy man can fix them without the aid of a plumber--a great consideration on the farm.
Narrow cellar windows were inserted in the sides of the house, to furnish light and air in the spring and fall, when the heavy work was being done, and also while gathering each day during the season. It is so much pleasanter to work by daylight, and it does not injure the crop in any way, if shutters are used to keep out the cold.
The main factor in mushroom-growing is beds. First, the material of which they are composed; secondly, the way they are made. Fresh manure, with a fair percentage of short bedding (straw or leaves preferably), must be collected each day when the stables are cleaned. We use two parts horse and one part cow manure, sometimes substituting sheep-droppings for horse. The daily collection must be stored in a shed and made into a pile about three feet high and two and a half feet wide.
As soon as sufficient manure is collected to fill the beds, the curing process should be commenced. This consists of packing manure closely together, and if at all dry, slightly moistening it with water or drainage from the stables to start fermentation. Within a few hours the heat will commence to create steam and it must be forked over and made into a fresh pile.
To check the heat, which would, if left to run its course, quickly burn out the value of the manure and render it worthless, forking and repiling will probably have to be repeated three or four times, with from two to three days intervening, according to the strength of the manure and the temperature. It usually takes from two to three weeks to cure manure properly. When it shows a temperature of one hundred degrees Fahrenheit after being undisturbed for thirty-six hours, it may be considered all right.
We half fill beds with the rough material, then mix soil from sod ground with the remainder to fill up the top of the beds. The proportion is about one-third soil to two-thirds prepared manure. When filling the beds, the manure, and also the mixture of soil and manure, should be strewed in thin layers, say about two inches at a time, and stamped down thoroughly before the next layer is added. When the beds are filled, cover the surface with straw or mats to prevent the beds becoming dry.
The manure will heat considerably after being packed in the beds, so thermometers should be inserted every few feet, as planting must not be done until the temperature falls to ninety degrees Fahrenheit, at which stage the straw or mat can be removed and the spawn inserted. The propagation of mushrooms is entirely different from that of any other vegetable, neither seed, bulb, nor cutting holding any place in the process. From the gill-like lining of a full-grown mushroom fall innumerable spores, so minute that if caught on a sheet of paper they would look like dust. If the spores fall upon earth that is in just the right condition, mould-like filaments develop, spread and become what we call spawn.
Spawn culture is a complicated process, which concerns the grower of mushrooms not at all, as he buys spawn as he would any other seed, except that it is sold in compressed brick-like cakes, which weigh about a pound apiece, or in rough shreds; the latter variety being known as flake or French spawn.
Bricks, known as English spawn, seem to give the best results in this country and are what we have always used. They should be broken into pieces about the size of a walnut, planted in rows a foot apart, the pieces being six inches apart in the rows. The spawn should be inserted about three inches. The best plan is to lift a small part of the manure with a hand fork, press down the spawn, replace the manure and press firmly in place. The close packing is one of the principal points of success, so it is well to go over the entire bed with the back of a wooden shovel or a small mallet.
After planting replace the straw or mats if the temperature of the house is at all dry. Eight days later remove the mats and cover the beds with a layer two inches thick of good garden soil.