THE AMATEUR’S KITCHEN GARDEN. 81 
things may be done with one sowing, and it will not bolt in 
haste. The first business will be to thin it by drawing out 
plants as soon as they are large enough for use. Draw out a 
tuft with the right hand, twist off the roots with the left, and 
thus fill the basket with spinach that will not require either 
to be picked or washed. Continue to thin in this way, and 
if the consumption does not use the thinnings fast enough, 
draw them and waste, so as to have the plants as soon as 
possible a foot apart. You will probably obtain an abundant 
supply by thinning only for about a month, and then the 
plants that remain will be giants in their way, and you may 
gather from them immense quantities of the finest spinach 
by nipping off their tops only. Begin at one end of the 
piece and go regularly through, and then begin as before, 
and go through again. You will probably not need to touch 
single leaves at all, for the topping process will enable you to 
gather a few bushels in about half-an-hour or so, and these 
will not need to be washed or even looked at by the cook, 
and being quite dry and clean, it will be necessary to use a 
little water to cook them, and that way of cooking produces 
a richer and greener dish than the customary one of cooking 
it in the water that drains from it after it is put over the 
fire. Again and again the plants may be topped, but at last 
the heat of the weather will compel them to make flower 
spikes, which is the signal for clearing the ground. Hound- 
seeded Spinach is the best for the first supply. 
Orach (Atriplex hortensis) may be secured in abundance 
from June to November, by the same course of procedure as 
described above, but more space must be allowed, and as other 
vegetables abound in the summer, a few rows only will 
perhaps be needed. It will be well, however, to sow three 
times at least ; say last week in May, first week in July, and 
first week in August. There are several plants available for 
the summer supply, but we have in mind now only such 
as produce a genuine spinach, requiring to be cooked the 
same way, and having when well served the same elegant ap- 
pearance and very nearly the same delicious sooty flavour. 
The best of them is the Golden Summer Spinach, a selection 
from the Common Orach, which also is first-rate, but coarser 
than the other. The first of these two is when growing the 
same colour as the “golden feather” pyretheum, and in large 
places may be employed as a yellow-leaved bedding plant ; 
G 
