NASTURTIUM 



NASTURTIUM (Tropceolum, majus, minus and tuberosum). 

 There are two varieties of the ordinary Nasturtium used as 

 vegetables, the large form of Majus and the smaller kind 

 Minus : the one is more common than the other, indeed 

 the larger variety may be seen in most gardens being 

 grown for ornament or for use in salads and pickles. Both 

 kinds, Majus and Minus, are natives of Peru, and are 

 perennial, but here they are treated as annuals, and some 

 of the more recently introduced varieties, which are 

 doubtless selections from the older forms, are really 

 very beautiful garden plants. My note more concerns 

 their value as vegetables than as salad plants. For 

 the latter purpose, leaves and flowers are used, but 

 it is the fruits which are doubtless more useful, and 

 these are largely used when pickled in vinegar and by 

 many persons are preferred to Capers, which they very 

 much resemble. In their native regions, where the 

 plants grow very quickly, the green portion of the plants 

 is at times used as a vegetable and the points of the 

 shoots eaten for salads. Their culture is most simple, 

 but the plant does best in a light soil with a warm 

 aspect, and though they may be grown in almost any 

 corner of the garden, they, well repay good culture if 

 grown for their fruit. Seed is best sown in the spring, 

 and if grown to stakes like Peas they bear heavy crops 

 and flower and continue to form fruits till cut down by 

 frost. Grown in rows, at least 4 feet should be allowed 

 between the rows for the first named Majus, as it obtains 

 a height of 8 feet or more, and the plants delight in 



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