104 CALIFORNIA VEGETABLES 



proper cultivation it will mature in two months. Resow with turnip-radish, 

 which is a good summer variety. These will be fit to use in three weeks, or 

 by the first week of July, when the ground will be ready for late cucumbers 

 which will occupy the ground until the first frost, or till the nights become too 

 cold for them to fruit. Now plant to carrots, beets, or onion sets, and any of 

 them will be ready for use in February or March. Here we have four crops 

 within twelve months, and no two of them occupying the ground at the same 

 time. There are other combinations that would do as well. 



Though this rapid work is quite feasible, as shown, and many 

 plants can enter into such combinations, the two crop plan will prob- 

 ably be as fast movement as most farm gardeners will keep up with, 

 and that consists in fall sowing of hardy vegetables for winter and 

 spring use, followed by spring planting of tender vegetables for 

 summer and fall use. Occasionally there will be intervals in this 

 rotation for a third or catch crop of lettuce, radish, etc., which takes 

 a very short time. This will be a vast improvement on the present 

 popular conception of gardening possibilities, and if the hint of a 

 fall crop of tender vegetables like melons, beans, corn, etc., planted 

 in July to come on fast in the heat, followed by fall planting of the 

 hardy list for winter use, these two crops will be gained before the 

 outbreak of the usual "garden fever," which rallies all garden forces 

 in February and March. The agencies to demonstrate this broader 

 conception of our gardening possibilities are Will and Work and 

 Water, to which allusion has been made in a previous chapter. 



Family Garden Programmes. It will surprise anyone who 

 carries out rapid succession of plantings to see how much desirable 

 food can be secured from a very small area. An enthusiastic 

 gardener at Lakeside, San Diego county, reported that his garden 

 of fifty feet square supplied enough vegetables, excepting potatoes, 

 for a large family, and required less than half a day's attention 

 during a week. He grew the following vegetables, planting each 

 month in the year as follows : 



January After the 20th, turnips, cabbage seed, carrots, lettuce, peas. 

 February Radishes, beets, salsify, spinach, onion seed or sets. 

 March Potatoes (in field), turnips, cabbage, lettuce, peas, cabbage plants. 

 April Cucumbers, watermelons, muskmelons, squashes, tomato plants, 

 radishes, beets, salsify, corn, beans, sweet potatoes, cabbage seed. 

 May Carrots, lettuce, peas, onion seed or sets. 

 June Radishes, beets, beans, corn, salsify, cabbage plants. 

 July Carrots, lettuce, cabbage seed. 

 August Potatoes (in field), corn, beans, radishes. 

 September Cabbage plants, peas, turnips, salsify, carrots. 

 October Beets, beans, onion sets, lettuce. 

 November Turnips, spinach, salsify. 

 December Winter radishes, peas, lettuce. 



He has the advantage of a very short period of frosts, and 

 light ones at that. He plants in rows eighteen inches apart, irri- 

 gates his garden every ten days in trenches and cultivates twice a 

 week. In favorable seasons he has natural moisture from Novem- 

 ber to April or May. If the rainfall is light he cultivates twice 

 a week. 



