THE KITCHEN GARDEN 



241 



Radishes are also nearly related to Mustard and 

 Turnip; indeed the round white ones, both in leaf 

 and root, are a very fair presentment of a tiny Turnip. 

 All gardeners know that Radishes should be grown 

 as quickly as possible; a slow-grown Radish is like 

 slowly-made toast, hard and tough and distasteful. 

 A learned garden-friend once said to me, " Grow your 

 Radishes in nearly pure leaf-mould." I tried growing 

 them in well-decayed leaf-mould without admixture in 

 late summer in a half shaded place, and kept them 

 well watered ; and though the leaves were a little 

 drawn, never did I eat such Radishes for delicate, 

 crisp, wet tenderness. 



Within the same family of Critcifercc are the 

 delicious Water-cress, and the Winter-cress or Land- 

 cress — eatable, but to my thinking, uninteresting — • 

 and also Horse-Radish. 



Sea-kale, already mentioned in its wild state, is so 

 handsome as a foliage plant, that I am using it in 

 prominent places in the flower border. I only found 

 out early this year what a capital table vegetable is 

 the mass of crowded flower-bud, cut when at the most 

 Broccoli-like stage. Indeed I might not have found 

 out at all, but that I thought it well, for the encourage- 

 ment of further leaf-development in some plants in 

 the flower border, to cut out the whole stalk of bloom 

 with its head of tight bud and thickened stem. And 

 as it happened that green spring vegetables, after a 

 trying drought during the last summer, were ex- 



