VICTORY GARDENS 



FOOD FOB THE ^ . KITCHEN DQDR 



Selective Draft Idea in trie Vegetable .Garden s. f. hamblin 



Eliminating the Slacker Crops That Do Not Pay on the Small Area Garden 



WHEN we are urged to plan and plant 

 our gardens, and to plant and plan 

 to fill our cellars with food for the 

 winter that will again come in due 

 season, we might suppose that all vegetables are 

 of equal worth in the task. Of course we all 

 know that, row for row, our various vegetables 

 are not of equal value for giving the wherewithal 

 to bolster up our stomachs. Of course we do 

 not need to think of this when planting under 

 ordinary conditions, for we merely try to have 

 everything we like. But in war times we plant 

 in terms of greatest returns in food value, first 

 of all, and war conditions still exist, so far as 

 our present viewpoint is concerned. 



Though no vegetables that we cultivate are 

 alien enemies, some are almost neutral in our 

 fight for food, some are slackers and do very little 

 to help us, while others are mere camp-followers 

 using our ground and food, and in time of stress 

 more in the way than of use. There is not much 

 fight in a cucumber or a watermelon, and think 

 of the good space they take up! The burden 

 of the fray falls upon a willing few, and on these 

 staunch defenders do we really depend. Some 

 other vegetables are more interesting to grow 

 and see and taste, but they don't deliver the 

 calories. 



Without saying that any modern vegetable 

 of the garden is bad, worthless or undesirable, 

 let us judge them and classify them by food 

 value in relation to time, effort and space re- 

 quired to produce them. The qfticker to grow 

 with high food value, the more rows of them 

 should we have. To consider the capabilities 

 of each one let us put them into three classes, 

 according to the part of the plant that is eaten, 



and in each class we list the more .valuable first. 

 The terms used are descriptive rather than accur- 

 ate, for we lack an accepted terminology for 

 these distinctions. 



/. Salad or Green Vegetables. Those whose 

 foliage, leaf-stalks or stems are eaten, with or 

 without cooking. 





Cooked 



Uncooked 



Spinach Dandelion 

 Young Beets Cuiled dock 

 Cabbage Swiss chard 

 Brussels sprouts New Zealand spinach 

 Cauliflower Scotch kale 

 Asparagus Kohlrabi 

 Rhubarb Globe artichoke 



Lettuce 



Celery 



Endive 



Cabbage 



Parsley 



Witloof chicory 



Petsai. 



underg 



Root Vegetables. Those 

 round, usually cooked. 



with edible ] 





Cooked 



Uncooked 



Potato 

 Sweet pot 

 Beet 

 Carrot 

 Onion 



Turnip 

 ato Leek 



Parsnip 



Salsify 



Celeriac 



Onion 

 Radish 

 Garlic 



grown 



F/uit-bearing Vegetables — 

 : or their seeds or fruits. 





Cooked L 



NCOOKED 



Bean 



Pea 



Corn 



Tomato 



Pumpkin 



Winter squash Tomato 

 S\immer squash Muskmelon 

 Okra Watermelon 

 Egg-plant Cucumber 

 Pepper 



part 



them very useful, but plant only so much as 

 you can use while they are fresh. 



'TTlE salad vegetables have no great food 

 *• value, but they are easily grown as a rule. 

 They are of immense benefit to our human 

 frame, both for the green cell tissue and the 

 mineral salts contained. Spinach, young beets, 

 and the cabbage tribe give foliage to boil the 

 season through; with the perennial asparagus, 

 dandelion, and rhubarb for early spring re- 

 enforcements. If you have an over-supply you 

 may cook and can, or pickle in salted water, for 

 "greens" in the middle of the winter. 



Swiss chard, New Zealand spinach, Scotch 

 kale, and kohlrabi you may plant if you wish; 

 they have not the wearing powers of spinach 

 and cabbage, and after a season or two your 

 stomach will demand a rest from them. Any 

 of these green vegetables may be dried and stored 



Consider carefully what you will plant in this year's garden! All vegetables are not of equal food value, so plan ahead and then " go to it " for 1919 



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