Before taking up the garden vegetables individually, I shall outline the general practice of cultivation, which applies to all.
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The purposes of cultivation are three to get rid of weeds, and to
stimulate growth by (1) letting air into the soil and freeing
unavailable plant food, and (2) by conserving moisture.
As to weeds, the gardener of any experience need not be told the
importance of keeping his crops clean. He has learned from bitter and
costly experience the price of letting them get anything resembling a
start. He knows that one or two days' growth, after they are well up,
followed perhaps by a day or so of rain, may easily double or treble the
work of cleaning a patch of onions or carrots, and that where weeds
have attained any size they cannot be taken out of sowed crops without
doing a great deal of injury. He also realizes, or should, that every
day's growth means just so much available plant food stolen from under
the very roots of his legitimate crops.
Instead of letting the weeds get away with any plant food, he should
be furnishing more, for clean and frequent cultivation will not only
break the soil up mechanically, but let in air, moisture and heat all
essential in effecting those chemical changes necessary to convert non-
available into available plant food. Long before the science in the case
was discovered, the soil cultivators had learned by observation the
necessity of keeping the soil nicely loosened about their growing crops.
Even the lanky and untutored aborigine saw to it that his squaw not
only put a bad fish under the hill of maize but plied her shell hoe over
it. Plants need to breathe. Their roots need air. You might as well
expect to find the rosy glow of happiness on the wan cheeks of a
cotton-mill child slave as to expect to see the luxuriant dark green of
healthy plant life in a suffocated garden.
Important as the question of air is, that of water ranks beside it.
You may not see at first what the matter of frequent cultivation has to
do with water. But let us stop a moment and look into it. Take a strip
of blotting paper, dip one end in water, and 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. 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. 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. Get a wheel hoe. The
simplest sorts 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.
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 you 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.
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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 those special attentions which are needed to
make them do their very best.
