1\ ™t R% v - ■ '•>- V^/ , 



Root -vegetables in a trench ready for covering with hay. Afterward mound up with Storing apples, potatoes, etc., in crates or barrels in a cellar is convenient. They may be 

 earth. Blankets or mats are used temporarily till real cold sets in picked over from time to time if necessary 



Keeping It When You've Got It f. 



F. ROCKWELL 



STORAGE OF GARDEN PRODUCTS FOR THE WINTER WITH OR WITHOUT A CELLAR, INDOORS OR OUT 



SOME clever paragrapher once said: 

 "There are a thousand ways of 

 -making money, but only one way of 

 having it — that is, to keep it" and the 

 same may be said of the products of the garden. 

 There are problems in the way of growing 

 things, yet you will find a dozen gardeners who 

 succeed in growing all, or more than, they can 

 use where you will find one who saves every- 

 thing that could be saved after it has been 

 grown. It is a mistake to assume that the 

 saving of the garden products is less important 

 than growing them in the first place. At 

 the present time when there is the prospect 

 that within a few months hundreds of thou- 

 sands of our own people and of our allies will 

 be seeing the shadow of starvation, there is 

 every reason for each one to do his or her ut- 

 most to save everything from every garden, 

 large or small, that can be saved. 



Why Vegetables Spoil 



"\7"EGETABLES and fruits spoil, many of 

 * them in a very short time after being 

 harvested or picked, as the result of the 

 presence of certain bacteria which attack 

 them immediately and start the processes of 

 decomposition or decay. To make vegetables 

 or fruits "keep" the gardener or housekeeper 

 has to prevent the bacteria from attacking 

 them. In canning or preserving these bacteria 

 are kept away by the can or jar after all those 

 present in the material to be canned have been 

 destroyed by heat sterilization. That is why 

 a leaky jar or can will quickly spoil — the germs 

 get back into it again. 



Another way of keeping fruits and vegeta- 

 bles is to lower their moisture content to such 

 an extent as to prevent the destructive bacteria 

 from making their attack in the usual way. 

 That is what is done in drying, or, to use the 

 more modern term, evaporating or dehydrat- 

 ing, fruits or vegetables. 



A good many vegetables and fruits will 

 "keep" for many weeks or even months if they 

 are given the conditions of environment re- 

 quired to keep their texture or cell structure in 

 a normal state. That is 'what we do in 

 "storing" vegetables and fruits for winter. 



Methods cf canning and drying have already 

 been described at length (Garden Magazine 

 for July). 



What Can Be Saved By Storing 



THE number of things that can be kept 

 through the winter by storing, without 

 artificial preservation of any kind, is much 

 greater than commonly realized. 



The things which may be kept until early 

 spring include beets, cabbage, carrots, celery- 

 onions, parsnips, radish, rutabagas, salsify, 

 squash, pumpkins and turnips. Those which 

 may be kept for a number of weeks include 

 cauliflower, sweet corn, lettuce, endive, pep- 

 pers, egg-plant, melons and tomatoes. Mak- 

 ing full use of both groups, the "winter 

 garden" becomes a thing of real utility. i 



Different methods of storing are required for 

 different groups. The beginner must know 

 exactly what is meant when told to "store in 

 the cellar" for winter, or to keep "in the store- 

 room " at " a suitable temperature." The tem- 

 perature suitable for some things is entirely un- 



Cabbage 



upside down in a trench. Fill level with light soil 

 and mound to shed water 



This tells the story of storing celery. The earth is packed 

 well about the roots only 



83 



Potatoes are dried off where dug for a few hours before 

 storing in a dry frost proof cellar 



