THE GARDEN AND ORCHARD 11Q 



for years before we struck the right ones for Med- 

 lock Farm. 



A vegetable garden is really three separate gar- 

 dens: one for immediate use, one for canning, and 

 one for winter keepers. It is hard to say which one 

 is most important, but certainly the winter garden 

 presents the most serious problem:' such things as 

 turnips, beets, cabbages and carrots are easy to raise 

 and to keep, but green winter vegetables are some- 

 thing else again. Celery is hard to raise properly, 

 still harder to blanch and store. So are leeks a 

 delicacy much neglected in this country. Endive, 

 when it will grow at all a thing I have not been 

 able to make it do these last three years is not 

 quite so difficult. All these crops are slow in ma- 

 turing, requiring long seasons and constant culti- 

 vation. On the other hand the raw green vegeta- 

 bles are of major importance in the winter diet; 

 and they are expensive to buy: they are worth the 

 struggle. 



The canning garden is closely allied to the one 

 for immediate use. Scarcely anything grows that 

 cannot be put in a mason jar and kept indefinitely. 

 We have tried nearly everything once: we have 

 even canned squash. But a steady annual improve- 

 ment in the winter garden and in fall-cropping 

 the spot-use garden has gradually limited the vari- 

 ety of stuff we need to can until, this last season, 



