22 GARDENING WITH BRAINS '^ 



and even sweeter. The first time we had them 

 my seven-year-old nephew exclaimed, joyously, 

 "Uncle, let's have only this kind next summer.'* 



Of all vegetables, carrots and spinach are 

 the most valuable because of their extraordinary 

 richness in mineral salts. Carrots are easy to 

 raise if you remember that they are slow to 

 germinate. In dry weather, therefore, cover the 

 seed beds till the plants are up. 



Spinach has a most aggravating habit of 

 going to seed as soon as the weather gets hot. 

 Many a time have I been fooled by optimistic 

 seedsmen who dreamed they had discovered a 

 summer-proof variety, and finally I swore off 

 on home-made spinach plants. But in 1920, 

 being a good deal of an optimist myself, I tried 

 a novelty featured by Vaughan, called "Ant- 

 vorskov." We found it equal in flavor to any 

 spinach we had ever eaten and — a garden 

 miracle! — it was not only "slower to run to 

 seed than any other sort," but some of the 

 plants, which I left on purpose, did not shoot 

 up after being in the ground four months! 



The spinach problem is solved ! If you think 

 you don't care, because you do not like spinach, 

 anyway, try it the French way, chopped fine, 

 mixed with a big lump of fresh butter, and a 

 poached egg dropped on it. 



Some other vegetables that belong in every 

 garden — ^notably com and lettuce — are referred 

 to in other chapters of this book (see Index), with 



