20 
HOUSE & GARDEN 
THE LAST CROP WORK OUT OF DOORS 
Harvesting and Storing Before the First Frosts — How to Handle the 
First Crops—The Final Touch in the Efficient Garden 
D. R. EDSON 
T HOSE who have lived for several years in one locality and 
have carefully noted the dates of the first frosts will be 
able to tell within a very few days the earliest date at which 
killing frost is likely to occur. A week or ten days in advance 
of this frost the careful gardener will make ready for the 
attack. A number of burlap bags or old blankets, which will 
serve for a temporary covering, should be provided, a cold- 
frame or two cleared out, the sash fixed up for immediate use, 
and a place made ready in some bed or in the corner of the 
veranda for the storage of such bulky things as squash, water¬ 
melons and pumpkins. The experienced gardener can foretell 
with a fair degree of certainty when a frost is probable. There 
is a certain “feel” in the air, a stillness in the waning afternoon, 
and a sharpness of detail about the black twigs laced against 
the cloudless sky which tells him, before he has looked at his 
rapidly falling thermometer, that it will not be best to take 
another chance, and that even those things which have been left 
growing until the last minute, such as melons, tomatoes, sweet 
corn, and cucumbers, must finally be given up—but with the 
least loss possible. 
Tomatoes 
With proper handling, good fruit may be had until after 
Thanksgiving or even until as late as Christmas. Fruit that has 
been frost bitten or even touched by the frost will be sure to 
decay, therefore safely in advance of the first frost, all the fruit, 
ripe and green, should be picked, carefully looked over, and the 
large green fruit saved for ripening. Spread several inches of 
clean straw in an empty coldframe, place a layer of tomatoes 
on this, and cover up with several inches more straw. Put on 
the sash as soon as the frost threatens; but ventilate freely on 
bright days. The greenest of the fruits, but only those which 
are perfectly sound, may be stored in the cellar or in a cold dark 
room, packed in straw or in layers in a crate so that they do 
not touch, to ripen more slowly. Another method is to select 
some of the plants that are the most thickly set with fruit, trim 
off the tops and most of the leaves and hang them up by the 
roots, the plant itself containing sufficient nourishment to ma¬ 
ture many of the partly 
grown fruits. The old 
and small fruits should, 
of course, be removed 
when the plants are 
taken up. 
Melons 
To keep muskmelons 
and watermelons grow¬ 
ing as long as possible 
the vines should be 
gone over a few days 
before frost is expected 
and the fruits which 
are sufficiently devel¬ 
oped to stand some 
chance of maturing, 
gathered together, each 
hill by itself, the fruit 
still left on the vines; 
but all surplus vines 
should be cut away. 
These small heaps of 
fruit and foliage may 
be easily covered and thus be protected from the first frosts, 
which usually are followed by two or three weeks of good 
weather. When this protection will no longer suffice, the fruits 
may be stored in a frame and ripened the same way as tomatoes, 
or placed in a dry room; the greatest care must be exercised in 
handling them. A slight skin bruise, one that will not show at 
the time, will start a decayed spot later. If they are carried in a 
wheelbarrow, bags or an old blanket should be spread under 
them and between each layer. Do not pile them in storing. 
In cutting, remove a piece of the vine with each fruit, leaving 
the stems intact. 
Squash and Pumpkins 
After the first frosts have blackened the foliage, remove the 
fruits with a portion of the vine with each, rub off any soil 
which may adhere to them, turn them under side up and place 
in piles which may be covered readily when frost threatens. 
Store them under cover as soon as convenient, but only where 
they can get plenty of air. If a coldframe or a bench in the 
greenhouse is available, it is a good plan to let the temperature 
for several days go as high as possible to “sweat them,” in order 
to dry them out. The smaller squashes and pumpkins should 
not be discarded; they will keep even better than those that are 
more matured, and should be saved until the last, as the process 
of ripening continues through the winter months. 
Egg Plants and Peppers 
While these are not winter vegetables, well formed fruits 
picked and stored in a moderately cool dark place will keep for 
a considerable length of time. The peppers should be pulled 
up by the roots, all the soil shaken off, and they should be tied 
with stout cord in bunches of convenient size and hung from 
the rafters of the shed or dry cellar. The egg plants should be 
handled carefully to avoid bruising, and packed in excelsior or 
straw, so that they will not touch. The plants of okra can be 
dried and hung up, or the pods removed and dried. 
Beans, Cucumbers, 
Sweet Corn 
None of these things 
are usually saved, but 
they need not be wholly 
abandoned. Any beans 
that are still young and 
tender enough for table 
use may be readily 
canned by the cold 
pack method (and in 
passing, it may not be 
out of place to remark 
that if the sterilizing is 
properly done,the vege¬ 
tables will keep prop¬ 
erly without the aid of 
so-called “preserving 
powders,” which are 
likely to prove at their 
best a possible cause of 
trouble to the family 
health.) Most of the 
(Continued on page 76) 
Though scarcely picturesque, bringing the harvest home in these days of cheap 
motors proves more efficient and rapid than the lumbering wain of old days and 
inefficient farming 
