76 CULTURE OF SEAKALE 



cheaper to grow the plants annually as described, and 

 to force by any of the several methods under glass. 



When much out-of-doors forcing is carried on it will 

 be necessary to remove the heating material after the 

 kale is cut. Personally I never clear quite all away but 

 leave a slight covering, as the change would otherwise 

 be great in frosty weather, seeing that the plants have 

 been treated to an unnatural temperature. When all is 

 cut over and the weather warmer, in the early part of 

 May, the beds should be slightly forked over and left. 

 Shortly growth will commence and generally many more 

 buds will start than it is desirable to have. As seakale 

 has a large thick leaf, if too many shoots are left all 

 the buds are in consequence weak or small. Now, the 

 larger these crowns are the larger is the kale in the 

 following year. So that here, as in every case where a 

 crowd of leaves is allowed, small shoots follow. There- 

 fore the plants should be gone over and all weakly 

 growths (especially the under onesj cut out, two or 

 three of the strongest alone being left. Otherwise, 

 when the plants attain an age of several years, the shoots 

 will vary according to the number of crowns. 



I often see in old gardens very old plantations of 

 seakale standing up in the winter like so many stems in 

 a coppice, some a foot or more above the ground. If 

 you examine such, you will find a good many crowns 

 rotten where good ones should be. The reason of this 

 excessive height is that when cutting, an inch or more 

 of the old wood has not been cut, so that by degrees 

 the plant has got higher and higher. The reason of the 

 rotten crowns being where buds should be is that the 

 plants have been allowed to flower, which is usual if 

 plants be not well cut down. If these flowering stems 

 are merely topped off, one of two things will follow — 

 either a mass of small buds on a sappy stem, or the 

 death of the flowering shoot and the rotting of the 



