FROM UNDER GLASS COMES THE MATERIAL FOR EARLIEST CROPS 



THE FIRST SALADS AND GREENS 



T NO time of the year possibly is gardening quite so 

 replete with satisfaction as when it is done in the hot- 

 bed — partly because the succulent freshness of things 

 just out of the earth is craved by the appetite at the 

 season when the hotbed makes them available, but largely 

 because circumventing the season and the weather is so alto- 

 gether astounding. It brings a thrill annually that is always 

 new. 



One of the first things to get fixed firmly in mind, however, 

 is that beyond a certain point there is something more than 

 climate or weather contending. This is the spark of life in 

 the seeds themselves. For it has its season, its appointed 

 time of waiting or lying quiescent apparently; and if it is 

 prematurely disturbed, it lags through all its life thereafter. 

 Hence gardeners know that nothing should be started before 

 the first of February; and say that vegetables "don't thrive" 

 if seed is sown earlier than this date. 



There are five vegetables which may be sown in the hotbed 

 as soon after February has arrived as one chooses. These 

 are radishes, spinach, lettuce, beets and carrots; and onions 

 from sets, which may be planted in the vacancy left by the 

 first harvest toward the end of the month, make a sixth. 

 The first harvest consists of radishes. Of these Rapid Red 

 or French Forcing will come to the table three weeks from the 



date of sowing, allowing a day or two leeway both ways. 

 Sometimes eighteen days will bring sufficiently grown radishes 

 to pull, and again it may take twenty-two to twenty-five. 



Eight days later usually the first crop of spinach may be 

 gathered. And then will follow a week later Grand Rapids 

 lettuce, with Electric beet five or six days behind it and 

 French Forcing carrot winding up the procession at the end 

 of another five days. And of course the instant a row is 

 cleared something else must be sown; for every minute 

 counts in a hotbed. The best succession is lettuce, spinach, 

 and onions following where rows of radishes, carrots, and beets 

 have been; and radishes, beets, and carrots following the 

 lettuce and spinach. These and the onions from sets are 

 grown to maturity and harvested from the hotbed. Usually 

 the last named follow the earliest lettuce plants, and thus it is 

 around March when they are put in. There is no reason for 

 not setting them as soon as the bed is ready, however, if there 

 is space. 



The matter of space raises a nice little question of adjust- 

 ment which ought to be answered before any planting is done, 

 since an embarrassment of plants is not to be desired. Where 

 a system of frames is maintained they should be divided up 

 and perhaps only one seeded in the beginning while the others 

 are held back, some to take the seedlings when they are ready 



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