VEGETABLE GROWING IN YOUNG ORCHARD. 137 



% 



Beets, carrots, peas, and other vegetables are sometimes 

 grown among the berries. Crops of onion seed' have been 

 grown among the trees of young orchards without irriga- 

 tion and the trees have done quite as well as when they 

 had the ground all to themselves. Free use of the culti- 

 vator has kept the ground loose and moist, after one or 

 two plowings. By irrigating in the fall, the ground can 

 be plowed so as to start the onions before the rains, though 

 this is not usually done. Onions planted any time between 

 October and February may be considered best, though 

 much depends on the season. It should be understood 

 that, aside from the favoring soil and artesian wells, this 

 locality is in line with the summer breezes that come in 

 from the ocean through the Golden Gate, 40 miles away, 

 adding moisture to temper the otherwise heated atmos- 

 phere of the valley. Of course we have only used the 

 onion as an example of a hardy, winter growing vegetable 

 and what we have said of it applies to all other upright 

 winter growers which do not make much lateral extension 

 in their growth. 



Such land will carry all growths that can find standing 

 room on it. Similar conditions are found on low, moist 

 valley lands in nearly all parts of the State, both in the 

 Coast and the interior valleys. The land has such wealth 

 of plant food and moisture that summer weed-killing, 

 which is not common in California, is quite a problem. 

 Where weeds will grow in spite of ordinary good summer 

 cultivation, the land will stand almost covering with use- 

 ful plants and it costs little more to grow them than to 

 keep down the wonderful weeds. 



