VEGETABLES THE 
YEAR ROUND ON 30x50Ft. 
JOHN R. EUSTIS 
Gardening as a Continuous Hobby and Recreation for the Business Man 
Which Keeps the Family Larder Supplied With an Abundance of Good Things 
8 THOUGHT you didn’t dig Parsnips until the early 
fiosts came,” 1 remarked, by way of seeking informa- 
tion when one Sunday morning, in the middle of a 
glorious Indian summer 1 had dropped in after a long 
walk to find my gardener friend busy digging a vegetable with 
long, white, tapering roots, the tops of which he threw on the 
compost heap. 
‘‘You don’t,” he replied, “and as a matter of fact 1 dig mine 
when the frost comes out of the ground in the spring. They are 
best flavored then and provide a fresh vegetable at a time when 
it is hardest to have them. However, these are not Parsnips 
but Witloof-chicory.” 
“And how do you cook thatr” 1 asked. 
“ You don’t,” he told me. “ It will provide our fresh 
salad next January and February.” 
“Eat those roots as a salad during winter!” I said, incredul- 
ously. 
“Not the roots, but the second growth of tops.” He spread 
a hundred or so of the largest roots out in the sun, and then en- 
lightened me further. “ You see, after these have dried out a bit 
1 will dig trenches ten inches deep and plant them in the bottom 
in holes made with an iron bar and fill up the trenches with 
earth. When the cold weather comes 1 will pile enough straw 
and manure on top to keep the ground from freezing. Along in 
January, when we have eaten the last of the Lettuce from the 
coldframes, I will begin to dig down into the trenches to find 
that each root has grown a new top of yellow-white leaves in the 
form of a compact head, like the heart of the Cos or Romaine 
Lettuce which you enjoyed so much last summer. 
“ There is another Chicory which grows a second top of loose 
leaves, the latter being the famous salad Barbe de Capucin 
(Monk’s-beard) featured in the leading restaurants of Paris dur- 
ing the winter months. This salad, however, is forced in sloping 
banks of earth placed in cellars or caves, but 1 have other uses 
for the spare room of my cellar. During the outdoor season 
when the roots are forming, a part of the top leaves may be 
picked and cooked for greens, although these are not to be com- 
pared with Beet tops or the leaves of Swiss Chard.” 
“ Yes,” I replied, “but what interests me more is the sugges- 
tion you have given that this garden, measuring something like 
fifty feet by thirty feet, can be made to produce vegetables, 
fresh vegetables, for winter as well as summer consumption. 1 
thought all the fresh vegetables in the winter came from the far 
South.” 
“ Many of them do, but more come out of storage, cold or 
otherwise, or are grown under glass with and without artificial 
heat. However, you are right about this garden. After some 
ten years of experimenting 1 have succeeded in making it pro- 
vide us with vegetables during every month of the year, most of 
which come under the classification of fresh vegetables. In 
fact, there need not be a single day out of the three hundred and 
sixty-five on which we cannot have on our table at least one 
fresh thing grown in this garden, or in the cellar. Why, even 
our hens lay for at least eleven out of the twelve months.” 
“Sort of nature faking now?” 1 queried. 
“Not at all. You see, we have about three dozen hens — all 
that we have room for — and they have the run of the vacant lots 
in the rear of our place. 1 buy new pullets every year, and a 
dozen hatch out about the first of March, another dozen 
early in May, the balance coming through the shell around the 
first of July. Each batch will begin laying in about eight 
months or a little better, and keep it up for nearly nine months; 
so just figure it up for yourself.” 
It took me several minutes to figure this out and to speculate 
on the other suggested subjects, during which time the gardener 
was at work cultivating rows of Celery. These stood some 
thirty inches apart, and led me to walk over to where he was at 
work and to offer the suggestion that valuable space was being 
wasted in so small a garden. 
“Wrong again,” was the retort. “Early in spring 1 planted 
Onions here, in rows fifteen inches apart. In August I set out 
these Celery plants, raised from seed in the seedbed by the cel- 
lar steps, between alternate rows of Onions. The latter were 
harvested two weeks ago and there are two bushels of fine 
Onions in the cellar now, which will last us an entire year. 
Early in November we will place protectors on these Celery 
plants and bank earth against them until only the tops 
are left uncovered. Later, when the weather turns cold, old 
bagging and straw will go over the tops and enough manure to 
keep the banked earth from freezing. We will begin digging 
and eating Celery about the middle of December, and at the 
rate of a head a day it will last about three months. I have tried 
several other methods of storing Celery for winter use, but this 
one provides the table with the best flavored and most crisp 
Celery. 
•'“That Kale you see there was also started in the seed- 
bed and transplanted between two rows of Onions, the opera- 
tions of planting the seed and transplanting following those of 
the Celery by about two weeks. With a light covering of straw 
and leaves, the Kale will continue to grow until the frosts be- 
come heavy. When the ground is frozen in December the Kale 
has its best flavor, but it provides two or three messes of fine 
greens each week from about Thanksgiving Day to New Year’s. 
The patch of Spinach you see growing there, where the first 
of the early Corn was, will soon be covered with a coldframe and 
glass sash. It will provide green Spinach during January. 
Then, except for the salads, we will have no more greens until 
early April, when the Corn-salad and Spinach, now growing be- 
tween the Tomato rows, and later to be protected with straw 
and leaves, is ready for eating. Incidentally, when the Tomato 
plants were set out late in May, that ground was bearing 
early crops of Beans, Lettuce, and Radishes. In May and June 
for greens we have the thinning of the Beets and the Swiss Chard 
and the leaves of the latter until early November. So you see 
we have fresh greens for practically ten out of the twelve months. 
“This Swiss Chard is an interesting vegetable. To borrow a 
term from animal husbandry, it is adual purpose type. The outer 
leaves may be continuously picked during the growing season, 
as they are rapidly replaced by new growths from the centre. 
The leaves proper are used as greens, while their broad stems 
are cooked as a separate vegetable, generally cut into inch 
lengths and stewed, when they taste much like stewed Celery. 
Oh, 1 almost forgot something in our line of greens. Last 
spring for the first time we used, both as a cooked Spinach and 
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