It is a common tendency to allow the vegetable garden to grow untidy and bare at the end of the season. A reasonable amount of attention 
at this time will pay big dividends in the vegetables that can be carried over into the winter months. 
Grow Your Own Vegetables 
VI—PRACTICAL SUGGESTIONS FOR MAKING THE GARDEN SERVE THE TABLE FAR 
INTO THE WINTER-REASONS WHY UNTIDINESS AT THIS SEASON DOES NOT PAY 
by F. F. Rockwell 
[This is the final instalment of Mr. Rockwell’s valuable series on the home vegetable garden, the first of which appeared last February. The six 
articles provide an excellent fund of practical information to preserve for reference, for they cover the whole subject of starting, setting out, cultivating 
and harvesting the best vegetables for the garden of moderate size .— Editor.] 
I T is hard to retain our interest in a thing when most of its 
usefulness has gone by. It is for that reason, I suppose, 
that one sees so many forsaken and weed-grown gardens every 
autumn, where in the spring everything was neat and clean. But 
there are two very excellent reasons why the vegetable garden 
should not be so abandoned—to say nothing of appearances! 
The first is that many vegetables continue to grow until the 
heavy frosts come; and the second, that the careless gardener, 
who thus forsakes his post, is sowing no end of trouble for him¬ 
self for the coming year. For weeds left to themselves, even 
late in the fall, grow in the cool moist weather with astonishing 
rapidity, and, almost before one realizes it, transform the well 
kept garden into a ragged wilderness, where the intruders have 
taken such a strong foothold that they can’t be pulled up with¬ 
out tearing everything else with them. So we let them go—and, 
left to themselves, they accomplish their purpose in life, and 
leave upon the ground an evenly distributed supply of plump ripe 
seeds, which next spring will cause the perennial exclamation, 
“Mercy, John, where did all these weeds come from?” And 
John replies, “I don’t know; we kept the garden clean last sum¬ 
mer. I think there must be weed seeds in the fertilizer.” 
Don’t let up on your fight with weeds, for every good vege¬ 
table that is left over can be put to some use. Here and there 
in the garden will be a strip that has “gone by,” and as it is now 
too late to plant we just let it slide. Yet now is the time we 
should be preparing all such spots for withstanding next sum¬ 
mer’s drouth! Flow ? You may remember how strongly was 
emphasized the necessity for having abundant “humus” (decayed 
vegetable matter) in the soil — how it acts like a sponge to re¬ 
tain moisture and keep things growing through the long dry 
spells which we seem to be sure of getting every summer. So 
take thought for next year. Buy a bushel of rye, and as fast as 
a spot in your garden can be “cleaned up,” harrow, dig or rake 
it over, and sow the rye on broadcast. Just enough loose surface 
dirt to cover it and let it sprout, is all it asks. If the weather 
is dry, and you can get a small roller, roll it in to ensure better 
germination. It will come up quickly; it will keep out the weeds 
which otherwise would be taking possession of the ground; it 
will grow until the ground is frozen solid and begin again with 
the first warm spring day; it will keep your garden from “wash¬ 
ing” in heavy rains, and capture and save from being washed 
away and wasted a great deal of left-over plant food; it will 
serve as just so much real manure for your garden; it will im¬ 
prove the mechanical condition of the soil, and it will add the 
important element of humus to it. 
In addition to these things, you will have an attractive and 
luxuriant garden spot, instead of an unsightly bare one. And in 
clearing off these patches for rye, beware of waste. If you have 
hens, or by chance a pig, they will relish old heads of lettuce, 
old pea-vines, still green after the last picking, and the stumps 
and outer leaves of cabbage. Even if you have not this means 
of utilizing your garden’s by-products, do not let them go to 
waste. Put everything into a square pile—old sods, weeds, vege¬ 
table tops, refuse, dirt, leaves, lawn sweepings, anything that will 
rot. Tread this pile down thoroughly; give it a soaking once in 
a while if within reach of the hose, and two or three turnings 
with a fork. Next spring when you are looking for every avail¬ 
able pound of manure with which to enrich your garden, this 
compost heap will stand you in good stead. 
Burn now your old pea-brush, tomato poles and everything 
that is not worth keeping over for next year. Don’t leave these 
things lying around to harbor and protect eggs and insects and 
weed seeds. If any bean-poles, stakes, trellises or supports seem 
in good enough condition to serve another year, put them under 
cover now; and see that all your tools are picked up and put in 
one place, where you can find them and overhaul them next Feb¬ 
ruary. As soon as your surplus of pole beans have dried in their 
pods, take up poles and all and store in a dry place. The beans 
may be taken off at your leisure later. 
Be careful to cut down and burn (or put in the compost 
heap) all weeds around your fences, and the edges of your gar¬ 
den. before they ripen seed. 
So many of the vegetables can be kept, for either part or all 
of the winter, that I shall take them up in order, with brief di¬ 
rections. Many, such as green beans, rhubarb, tomatoes, etc., 
which cannot be kept in the ordinary ways may be easily and 
cheaply canned, and where one has a good cellar, it will certainly 
pay to get a canning outfit and make use of this method. 
Beans : Almost all the string and snap beans, when dried in the 
pods, are excellent for cooking. And any pods which have not 
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