Part 5

FRAMES USED IN TRUCK GROWING.

Intensive gardening under sash or cloth covers has become one of the most popular and, in certain localities where the conditions are suitable, one of the most profitable lines of outdoor work. The trucker and the market gardener of the present day have been compelled by keen competition and a constantly increasing demand for high-grade products out of season to provide special facilities for increasing and improving the product, as well as to take advantage of every favorable natural condition. Many localities are especially favored with an abundance of sunshine at all seasons of the year, and at the same time their climate, due to the influence of large streams or near-by bodies of water, is mild and free from extremes of temperature. In such localities it would be possible to grow lettuce, radishes, and similar crops during the entire winter without protection were it not for a few cold days and nights. A very slight covering or the application of a small amount of heat will, as a rule, carry the plants through in good condition. This industry may readily be combined with regular truck farming, as it furnishes remunerative employment during the winter months. A comparatively small area is necessary for the frames, but several times that acreage of land should be available, so that the site of the frames may be changed every few years to safeguard against diseases and insect injuries.

_Cloth-Covered Frames._--The type of frame or bed varies with the different localities and is ordinarily no more elaborate or expensive than is necessary to protect the crops. In North Carolina and South Carolina the type of frame generally used is that having for the sides two lines of 12-inch boards set on edge and held in place by means of stakes driven into the ground. The covering of cheap unbleached muslin is supported on strips of wood 1 inch thick and 2-1/2 or 3 inches wide, which are raised in the center by being carried over the top of a stake; the ends are held down by nailing to the sides of the bed. Most of these frames are temporary and are taken apart and stored during the summer months. Before placing the frames in position in the autumn the soil is plowed, thoroughly fitted, and given a liberal dressing of well-rotted stable manure and commercial fertilizers. The placing of the boards will cause some trampling of the bed, and before putting in the ends and nailing on the rafters or strips to support the cloth it is desirable to loosen the soil again by means of a harrow or cultivator. The stakes for supporting the cross strips or rafters are then driven through the center and the strips nailed in place at intervals of 4 feet. The ends are inclosed by means of 12-inch boards, and the bed is then ready for the cloth cover. The cloth is first stitched, with the strips running lengthwise of the bed, into one great sheet large enough to cover the entire bed. This sheet is fastened on the north side of the frame by nailing over it plastering laths or similar strips of wood. The cloth should not be fastened to the top edge of the board but on the side, 1 or 2 inches below the top. For fastening the sheet on the south side of the frame short loops of string or cloth are attached to its edge and these are looped over nails driven into the side of the bed.

_Sash-Covered Frames._--In the tidewater region of Virginia the frames are covered with hotbed sash. The climate of Norfolk is a little too severe for the use of cloth except for early autumn and spring crops. A number of growers in the vicinity of Norfolk handle sash-covered frames occupying as much as 3, 4, or 5 acres each season. For the sides and ends of these frames the same class of cheap lumber as for the cloth-covered frames is used.

_Heated Frames._--Farther north, near Chicago, St. Louis, Cleveland, Detroit, Baltimore, Philadelphia, Cincinnati, New York, and Boston, sash-covered frames are extensively used for growing early vegetables. This work is practically the same as that found at Norfolk, except that the frames are constructed over an excavation which is filled with fermenting manure to provide heat. Where manure-heated beds are extensively used for growing early vegetables a long, shallow pit is opened, the manure is trodden in, and 12-inch boards are fastened to stakes to form the sides. The board on the north side is raised a little higher than the one on the south side in order to form a slope for the glass. A few strips are nailed across the bed to prevent the sides from coming in by the pressure of the manure or soil that is banked on the outside, and the sash simply rest on the sides without any guide or supporting strips between them. Straw mats and board shutters are employed as a protection for the sash during cold weather.

_Temperature of Frames._--The temperature at which the air of the beds should be carried will depend entirely upon the crop being grown. Thermometers should be placed at intervals in the beds, as it is not safe to judge the temperature by personal sensation. If lettuce, parsley, or radishes are growing in the beds, the temperature should not go above 70° F. before ventilation is given; on the other hand, if the frames are filled with cucumbers, eggplant, or peppers, the temperature may run 8 or 10 degrees higher. It should be borne in mind that any covering, whether cloth or sash, will exclude a part of the light, and every precaution is necessary to prevent the plants becoming "drawn." The safest plan is to keep the temperature a trifle low and thus retain the plants in a strong, thrifty condition. Where tender plants are being grown under cloth there is greater danger of injury from keeping them covered too tightly than from exposure to moderate cold.

VENTILATION.

_Open-Air._--In the care of cloth-covered frames the covers are left off during bright weather and the plants subjected to open-air conditions. When there is danger of cold the covers are put on at night, and during unfavorable weather they are frequently left on during the day. While the cloth covers conserve the heat, they at the same time exclude the sunlight, and if they are kept on too great a portion of the time the crops will become drawn and spindling. With sash-covered frames the matter of ventilation is of prime importance. The glass admits and holds the heat of the sun's rays, and during bright weather it is necessary to open the frames quite early in the morning. Ventilation is accomplished by propping up one end or one side of the sash on a notched stick. The rule to be followed is to ventilate on the side away from the wind, so that the wind will blow over the opening and not into the bed.

_Protection of Frames._--The area occupied by the frames is often surrounded by a high board fence or a hedge of evergreens to break the force of the wind. If a large area is devoted to frames it is sometimes subdivided by numerous cross fences to break up air currents and lessen the force of storms. Where no heat is applied to the frames the control over temperature will not be great except in the prevention of too high temperature by means of ventilation during bright weather. In many instances straw and burlap mats are kept ready at hand for throwing over sash-covered frames to prevent loss from freezing, but this would not be practicable on a large scale. Sometimes the glass is covered by shoveling one-half or three-fourths of an inch of soil over it, but this involves considerable labor and frequently results in the breakage of a great deal of glass. It is possible to ward off frost by the use of a number of orchard heaters in the frame yard. These heaters burn kerosene or crude oil and give off both heat and a smudge which will prevent injury from a reasonable degree of cold.

_Crops Grown in Frames._--The crops most commonly grown in frames are lettuce, radishes, cucumbers, garden beets, parsley, eggplant, peppers, and snap beans. The crops grown in the sash-covered frames do not differ materially from those grown under cloth. In the spring, however, many growers devote their beds almost entirely to cucumbers and eggplant instead of to lettuce and radishes. To the southward the cloth covers are sufficient to protect the more hardy crops throughout the winter. To the northward the hardy crops may be grown under sash in midwinter, and those requiring more heat are grown in the spring.

_Marketing Crops Grown in Frames._--Crops grown in frames are usually superior in quality and appearance to those grown in the open and should be given more care in handling and marketing. The cost of production is somewhat higher than for outdoor crops, and it is essential that they be put up in neat packages in order to bring the highest market price. The more successful growers give the work of gathering, grading, and packing the crop their closest personal attention and use only clean, attractive packages for handling and shipping.

The packages employed for handling the frame products are generally the same as those used for marketing outdoor vegetables, of the same kinds. In a few instances a distinctive package has been employed. The use of special shipping packages that would give the frame-grown produce special recognition on the markets would be a decided advantage to the grower.--(F. B. 460.)

SOIL AND FERTILIZERS.

The greater portion of the work with frames is conducted on light or sandy loam soils which are naturally well drained and adapted to intensive trucking. The original soil is usually employed, but when necessary rich soil is hauled and placed in the beds. The first essential is good drainage, and if the land is not naturally well drained it should be tiled or provided with numerous open ditches to carry off the water. The surface of the soil should be graded and all depressions filled in and leveled. For best results the land should be subjected to two or three years of preparation by manuring and planting to leguminous crops.

The presence of plenty of organic matter in the soil is very important, especially where large quantities of commercial fertilizers are to be used. This organic matter may be added in the form of stable manure, but more satisfactory results will be obtained where leguminous crops are included in the preparatory treatment. For green manure nothing is better than cowpeas as a summer crop and crimson clover as a winter crop. The crimson clover should be turned under about the time it comes into full bloom in the spring, the land planted to cowpeas, and the resulting crop plowed under or mowed for hay during the month of August in ample time to prepare the land for frame work during the autumn. When heavy crops of green manure are turned under it is essential that lime be used to improve the mechanical condition and to sweeten the soil; a dressing of 1,000 pounds to the acre should be sufficient.

Large quantities of stable manure are used in growing crops in frames, sometimes as much as 30 to 60 cartloads to the acre. The manure is generally spread in a broad, flat pile to compost before it is applied to the soil on which frames are to be located. Where manure is employed for heating the beds it may afterwards be mixed with the soil for the growing of subsequent crops. Poultry and sheep manure is excellent fertilizer for frame work, but the quantity obtainable is very small. In the application of natural manures of all kinds it is essential that the manure should be fine; that it be what is termed "short" manure.

WATERING CROPS.

To insure success in the cultivation of plants in frames it is necessary to provide some means of applying water to the soil. Occasionally the supply of water can be obtained from the system of some city, but more often it must be pumped from a well or stream and stored for use in an elevated tank. Watering is generally done during the late afternoon, but should be completed early enough to permit the foliage to become reasonably dry before closing the frames for the night. If the plants are young and very tender it will be important to avoid too great a degree of moisture. Serious losses from "damping-off" often result from excessive moisture, especially at night, when evaporation is not so rapid as during the day. Many gardeners make the mistake of watering too often and not doing the work thoroughly. Under ordinary conditions twice a week will be often enough to apply water, and in winter, when evaporation is at its lowest point, once a week will be sufficient. In watering the sash-covered frames it is necessary either to remove the sash or to prop them up high enough to permit working under them. As a rule the sash are taken off early in the morning of a bright day, the soil is stirred, sometimes a little fertilizer is added, later in the day the bed is watered, and toward night the sash are replaced.

ANISE.

This is an annual. Leaves used as a garnish. The seeds are the source of Anise oil. This plant grows well and gives a good yield of seed. Seeds should be soaked over night in warm water and sown thickly.--(U. Idaho 10.)

ARTICHOKE, GLOBE.

This plant requires a deep, rich sandy loam, with a liberal supply of well-rotted manure, is best suited for growing artichokes. Plant the seeds as soon as the soil is warm in the spring, and when the plants have formed three or four leaves they may be transplanted to rows 3 feet apart and 2 feet apart in the row. The plants do not produce until the second season, and in cold localities some form of covering will be necessary during the winter. This crop is not suited for cultivation north of the line of zero temperature. After the bed is once established the plants may be reset each year by using the side shoots from the base of the old plants. If not reset the bed will continue to produce for several years, but the burs will not be so large as from new plants. The bur, or flower bud, is the part used, and the burs should be gathered before the blossom part appears. If they are removed and no seed is allowed to form, the plants will continue to produce until the end of the season.

ARTICHOKE, JERUSALEM.

This useful and productive plant will grow in any good garden soil, and should be planted three to four feet apart each way, with three or four small tubers in a hill. If large tubers are used for planting they should be cut the same as Irish potatoes. Plant as soon as the ground becomes warm in the spring and cultivate as for corn. A pint of tubers cut to eyes will plant about thirty hills. The tubers will be ready for use in October, but may remain in the ground and be dug at any time during the winter.--(F. B. 255; U. Idaho 10.)

ASPARAGUS.

This valuable plant was formerly a luxury on the tables of the rich, but is now during the season a vegetable seen daily upon the tables of people of moderate or even small incomes. It is also frequently recommended as an article of diet for the sick and convalescent. To the asparagus grower there are two methods by which plants can be secured, (1) by purchasing or saving the seed from which to raise them, and (2) by purchasing the plants from either a seedsman or some grower. Taking the second method, as being the quickest way to start a bed as well as the most easily disposed of, it is suggested that roots over two years old be rejected, and only one-year-old roots selected if a sufficient number can be secured, as the latter are much better and will in the course of a few years produce more and larger spears to the plant and yield profitable crops for a longer period. It is best to deal with reliable firms; they will be more likely to supply plants of both the kind and age desired.

_Seed._--Only reliable seedsmen should be trusted, or the seed should be procured from some neighbor who has the desired variety and has taken proper care in producing and saving the seed, if the first plan is to be followed. If one already has an asparagus bed of the desired sort, producing fine spears, and of the proper age (8 to 12 years old) for seed production, it is always best to save seed from it for new plantings. The growing of one's own plants is preferable, both because of the extra year intervening between the determination to plant and the actual setting out of the bed, thereby permitting the soil of the proposed bed to be put in a better and more friable condition, and because, good seed having been secured and proper care given to the young plants, a more satisfactory supply of the young roots is obtained. That there are objections to growing one's own seed is undoubtedly true, but there are also compensating advantages, and if proper care is exercised it will pay the grower to raise his own seed (from beds which are satisfactory) even if seed can be bought in the open market for much less than the trouble of attending to the home grown may cost. If, however, a grower is unwilling or unable to exercise the necessary care in the production of seed, he would do much better not to attempt it, but depend upon some reliable dealer, studiously avoiding those whose claims to patronage are based upon cheapness of stock. Good seed are worth good money; poor seed should not be accepted under any conditions.

_Soil._--Asparagus will grow on most soils, and will yield large crops upon stiff soils; but for the purpose of the grower for market, a light sandy soil of fair fertility is much to be preferred, both because of the earliness with which it produces marketable spears and the ease with which it is cultivated. A soil on which water stands after rain, or under which the standing subsurface water is near the surface, into which the roots are liable to penetrate, is to be avoided. Of course, such a soil, if otherwise suitable, can be made fit by a thorough system of under drainage, since an occasional overflow, or even a submergence of the beds for several days, is not necessarily injurious if the drainage, either natural or artificial, is good. The soil should be free of roots, stones, or any trash that will not readily disintegrate or that will interfere with the growth of the spears. A rather stiff but naturally well-drained soil which produces early and fine asparagus, notwithstanding the fact that it is full of large gravel, some of the stones being twice the size of a man's fist.

_Shade._--Fruit or other trees or high shrubs must not be allowed in the asparagus bed, because of the shade they throw over the beds and because their roots make heavy drafts upon the soil. Nor should high trees, hedges, hills, or buildings be so near as to throw a shadow upon the beds, because all the sunshine obtainable is needed to bring the spears quickly to the surface. The land should be protected from the north or east (or from the direction of the prevalent winds) and so slope that the full benefit of the sunshine will be obtained during the whole day. Freedom from weeds is very desirable, even more so than great fertility, for the latter can be produced by the heavy manuring which the future cultivation will require; and to the end that weeds may be few, it is well that for a year or two previous to planting the land should have been occupied by some hoed crop, such as potatoes, beets, cabbages, etc.

_Cultivation._--In the late fall or early winter the selected area, should be a light sandy loam as described above, needs to be deeply plowed, and if the subsoil is not already of an open and porous nature, through which surface water will readily drain and the roots easily penetrate, a subsoil plow should follow, breaking the soil to the depth of at least 15 inches. After harrowing the field, a good compost of well-rotted horse, cow, sheep, or other manure should be spread broadcast and left to the action of the weather until as early in the spring as the ground is in condition to be worked, when the manure should be plowed in, the surface carefully harrowed, and the soil put in a light and friable condition.

As early in the spring as the condition of the ground will permit work to be done--when it is dry enough to bear plowing and the soil will break up fine--rows should be marked off 4 to 6 feet apart and opened up with a large plow, going a sufficient number of times to make a furrow from 8 to 12 inches deep. Loose soil that the plow does not throw up should be taken up with a shovel or wide-bladed hoe. It is in these furrows that the crowns are to be set, the distance to be left between plants varying, according to the opinion of the grower, from 18 inches to 5 feet.

_Planting._--Rows should be run north and south, so that the full benefit of the sunshine will be secured. If the rows run east and west, they will be shaded by the ridges in early spring, when the sun is low in the south, and later in the season they will be completely shaded on one side by the tall foliage. This delays sprouting in the spring, and prevents the best development of the plants at all times. Of course, any conditions, such as the slope of the land, etc., which make it inadvisable to run the rows north and south must be considered, but southeast to northwest or northeast to southwest is better than due east or west, or, in short, the natural conditions permitting, the course should be as far from east and west as possible. This is especially important to those who ridge the rows to produce white asparagus. Early in the spring of each year, after the plants are old enough to cut, there must be a ridge made over the rows to blanch the shoots, if white asparagus is to be cut; and once ridging is not sufficient, but after the spears begin to appear the ridges will need renewing every week or ten days during the cutting season, as the rains beat them down and the sun bakes a crust upon the top. The grower of green asparagus has about the same work, less the ridging and plowing down. As it is necessary to keep down all weeds, some hoeing may be necessary as supplementary to a free use of the 1-horse cultivator. After the cutting season, a cutaway harrow run twice diagonally across the rows loosens up the soil and destroys a vast number of weeds without injury to the crowns, although some spears may be broken off.

_Brush._--The bushes should be cut as soon as the berries are fully colored, as the growth will be sufficiently matured so that no injury will be done the roots by removing the tops, thus avoiding a further drain upon the roots to mature the seed, and preventing the dropping of seed, followed by the springing up of innumerable young asparagus plants.

All brush should be promptly collected and burned, that there may be no lodging places for insects and diseases. In case the fields were not leveled, harrowed, and manured at the close of the cutting season, now is a convenient time to perform this work, although if the soil is rather too moist it is well to leave the surface firm, that the winter rains may run off rather than penetrate to the already too damp subsoil around the roots.