CHAPTER XVIII 

 HOW TO PICK VEGETABLES 



FIRST of all it pays to pick vegetables very care- 

 fully, just as it pays to pick flowers carefully, and 

 for the same two reasons, we do not wish to injure 

 either the vegetable or the plant on which it grows. 

 Quick, rough pulling is apt to break the vegetable 

 or fruit and also apt to break the plant and loosen 

 it in the soil. Make up your mind that you are go- 

 ing to take time enough to do it right even if you 

 have to get up a little earlier, which is such a hard 

 thing for so many of us to do. 



First we must have some idea what our vegetable 

 looks like when it is ready to pick; perhaps a vege- 

 table is new to you ; you have never seen it growing 

 or eaten it, then of course you want to know how 

 it should look when ripe. Ripe is a queer word be- 

 cause it has two meanings. It means "ready to 

 pick for food" and it also means "ready to pick 

 for seed." Of course we have to decide whether we 

 are going to use our plant for food or for seed. A 

 few of our vegetables are ripe for seed and ripe for 



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