Home Vegetable Gardening - F. F. Rockwell (nice books to read .txt) 📗

watch the moisture

run up hill, soak up through the blotter. The scientists have labeled

that “capillary attraction”—the water crawls up little invisible tubes

formed by the texture of the blotter. Now take a similar piece, cut it

across, hold the two cut edges firmly together, and try it again. The

moisture refuses to cross the line: the connection has been severed.

 

In the same way the water stored in the soil after a rain begins at

once to escape again into the atmosphere. That on the surface

evaporates first, and that which has soaked in begins to soak in

through the soil to the surface. It is leaving your garden, through the

millions of soil tubes, just as surely as if you had a two-inch pipe

and a gasoline engine, pumping it into the gutter night and day! Save

your garden by stopping the waste. It is the easiest thing in the world

to do—cut the pipe in two. And the knife to do it with is—

dust. By frequent cultivation of the surface soil—not more than

one or two inches deep for most small vegetables—the soil tubes are

kept broken, and a mulch of dust is maintained. Try to get over every

part of your garden, especially where it is not shaded, once in every

ten days or two weeks. Does that seem like too much work? You can push

your wheel hoe through, and thus keep the dust mulch as a constant

protection, as fast as you can walk. If you wait for the weeds, you

will nearly have to crawl through, doing more or less harm by

disturbing your growing plants, losing all the plant food (and they

will take the cream) which they have consumed, and actually putting in

more hours of infinitely more disagreeable work. “A stitch in time

saves nine!” Have your thread and needle ready beforehand! If I knew

how to give greater emphasis to this subject of thorough cultivation, I

should be tempted to devote the rest of this chapter to it. If the

beginner at gardening has not been convinced by the facts given, there

is only one thing left to convince him—experience.

 

Having given so much space to the reason for constant care in

this matter, the question of methods naturally follows. I want to

repeat here, my previous advice—by all means get a wheel hoe. The

simplest sorts cost only a few dollars, and will not only save you an

infinite amount of time and work, but do the work better, very much

better than it can be done by hand. You can grow good

vegetables, especially if your garden is a very small one, without one

of these labor-savers, but I can assure you that you will never regret

the small investment necessary to procure it.

 

With a wheel hoe, the work of preserving the soil mulch becomes very

simple. If one has not a wheel hoe, for small areas very rapid work can

be done with the scuffle hoe.

 

The matter of keeping weeds cleaned out of the rows and between the

plants in the rows is not so quickly accomplished. Where hand-work is

necessary, let it be done at once. Here are a few practical suggestions

that will reduce this work to a minimum, (1) Get at this work while the

ground is soft; as soon as the soil begins to dry out after a rain is

the best time. Under such conditions the weeds will pull out by the

roots, without breaking off. (2) Immediately before weeding, go over

the rows with a wheel hoe, cutting shallow, but just as close as

possible, leaving a narrow, plainly visible strip which must be hand-weeded. The best tool for this purpose is the double wheel hoe with

disc attachment, or hoes for large plants. (3) See to it that not only

the weeds are pulled but that every inch of soil surface is

broken up. It is fully as important that the weeds just sprouting be

destroyed, as that the larger ones be pulled up. One stroke of the

weeder or the fingers will destroy a hundred weed seedlings in less

time than one weed can be pulled out after it gets a good start. (4)

Use one of the small hand-weeders until you become skilled with it. Not

only may more work be done but the fingers will be saved unnecessary

wear.

 

The skilful use of the wheel hoe can be acquired through practice only.

The first thing to learn is that it is necessary to watch _the wheels

only:_ the blades, disc or rakes will take care of themselves. Other

suggestions will be found in the chapter on Implements.

 

The operation of “hilling” consists in drawing up the soil about the

stems of growing plants, usually at the time of second or third hoeing.

It used to be the practice to hill everything that could be hilled “up

to the eyebrows,” but it has gradually been discarded for what is

termed “level culture”; and the reader will readily see the reason,

from what has been said about the escape of moisture from the surface

of the soil; for of course the two upper sides of the hill, which may

be represented by an equilateral triangle with one side horizontal,

give more exposed surface than the level surface represented by the

base. In wet soils or seasons hilling may be advisable, but very seldom

otherwise. It has the additional disadvantage of making it difficult to

maintain the soil mulch which is so desirable.

 

ROTATION OF CROPS

 

There is another thing to be considered in making each vegetable do its

best, and that is crop rotation, or the following of any vegetable with

a different sort at the next planting.

 

With some vegetables, such as cabbage, this is almost imperative, and

practically all are helped by it. Even onions, which are popularly

supposed to be the proving exception to the rule, are healthier, and do

as well after some other crop, provided the soil is as finely

pulverized and rich as a previous crop of onions would leave it.

 

Here are the fundamental rules of crop rotation:

 

(1) Crops of the same vegetable, or vegetables of the same family (such

as turnips and cabbage) should not follow each other.

 

(2) Vegetables that feed near the surface, like corn, should follow

deep-rooting crops.

 

(3) Vines or leaf crops should follow root crops.

 

(4) Quick-growing crops should follow those occupying the land all

season.

 

These are the principles which should determine the rotations to be

followed in individual cases. The proper way to attend to this matter

is when making the planting plan. You will then have time to do it

properly, and will need to give it no further thought for a year.

 

With the above suggestions in mind, and put to use, it will not

be difficult to give the crops mentioned in the following chapter those

special attentions which are needed to make them do their very best.