Vegetable Growing for Market 



163 



half-exposed. There is an old saying that Shallots should be planted on 

 the shortest day and harvested on the longest day. and no doubt this can 

 be done in the milder parts of the kingdom. In good rich soil, kept clean 

 by hoeing, excellent crops may be secured from 25 to 30 tons per acre, 

 although 15 tons would be perhaps nearer the usual yield. Even this at 

 10 per ton is by no means to be despised if a sale can be found for the 

 bulbs. 



30. SPINACH 



Spinach (Spinacia oleracea) is divided into winter and spring varieties. 

 There is also a kind called New Zealand, which is grown for midsummer. 

 It belongs to a different genus (see below). To take the winter variety 

 first. This has prickly seed. 

 Sowings are made in late August 

 and during September, in drills 

 9 in. apart, with the seed buried 

 to the depth of H in. It is a good 

 plan to have the land on which 

 the Spinach is to be sown ploughed 

 a week or two before it is wanted, 

 and left to settle, as it prefers 

 firm ground. Pickings begin as 

 soon as the leaf is big enough, and 

 in mild seasons continue all the 

 winter. Winter Spinach is liable 

 to a fungoid disease the nature of 

 which is hardly yet understood, 

 and no remedy known for it, 

 except perhaps sulphuring the 

 ground. When attacked, the plants go yellow at the leaves and gradually 

 melt away. The earliest sowings are most frequently attacked, and it is 

 a good precaution to put off one sowing to near the end of September. It 

 is when spring growth commences that the winter Spinach produces its 

 principal pickings, which continue until it runs to seed in June. 



Sometimes, however, there is such a glut on the market that the bold 

 cultivator prefers to plough it in early in May in order to get another crop 

 on the land. 



Spring Spinach consists of the round-seeded varieties, of which the Vic- 

 toria is perhaps the most grown. Sowings commence early in the spring, 

 and continue till June, after which it is no use sowing, because Spinach 

 will not thrive during the hottest days of summer. [w. G. L.] 



Spinach is grown in cold greenhouses during the winter and spring 

 months when a large space is available. The seed is sown in October 

 in drills about 1 ft. apart in the ordinary way. Growth is slow at first, 

 owing to the low temperature, but picking commences about the middle 

 of March and continues till May, when the ground is cleared for Toma- 



Fig. 493. Xew Zealand Spinach (Tetragona expansa) 



