GOING INTO WINTER QUARTERS 31 



reached the season when there will be a frost whether it is 

 cloudy or not, whether there is wind or not. The surface of 

 the ground is frozen every morning, the tops of the beets and 

 parsnips are dead, and even the hardy chrysanthemum yields 

 to the season as its blossoms die. It is time to take every 

 plant from the vegetable garden except the asparagus and rhu- 

 barb, sea-kale and udo, the cover-crops, the spring spinach, 



FIG. 20. These celery plants, lifted as shown on the right, and trimmed as 

 shown on the left, are ready to put in the box and store in a cold cellar. 



and the parsnip and salsify roots. The annual flowers must 

 be cleared away, and the compost heap increases with the 

 pile of dead stalks. The celery is covered over with earth 

 and boards and leaves, or is set, roots and all, deep in the 

 ground. The last bare bit of garden is spaded over. 



And at last the flower beds, the shrubberies, and the 

 bulbs are to be bedded down. If we let nature alone, she will 

 do some of the work for us. Everywhere through the fall 



