Food Lovers Garden by Angelo M. Pellegrini

Author:Angelo M. Pellegrini [Pellegrini, Angelo M.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-307-82025-9
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 2012-07-10T16:00:00+00:00

Back now to broccoli. Remembering that the plant is cold- hardy, and depending on the region in which you live, you may germinate in flats or sow the seed directly into the ground. The plant is large; it needs a space about 18 inches in diameter. If you are planting a single row, make a furrow about 2 inches deep and drop several seeds in spaces 18 inches apart. If you are using multiple rows, space them at 18 or so inches. Cover the seed lightly with soil and firm it down with your foot. When the little plants are 3 or 4 inches high, remove all but the sturdiest one from each space. Remove weeds as they appear, cultivate frequently, and hope for the best. Your job is done. If your soil is fertile and well manured, the plants will thrive. Otherwise, when they are 10 or so inches tall, scatter a handful of a complete, balanced fertilizer at the base of each plant.

The edible portion of the broccoli is actually the flower head. Cut the upper four inches of the flower cluster while the tiny seed pod is still green and tightly closed. When it begins to open and the yellow of the flower begins to show, the broccoli has passed its prime. You would be unkind to allow it to live so long. Nip it while it’s still young and bring it to your table.

CABBAGE. The most widely used and universally known of the cabbage group of herbaceous edibles is King Cabbage itself, the vegetable of the poor. There are reasons for this fact. The cabbage yield per unit of land surpasses that of any other vegetable. A fairly large head of cabbage, waste-free, will weigh about five pounds. The plant may be grown on a spot of land eighteen inches in diameter. To grow a like quantity of waste-free broccoli would require more than twice that land area, and four times that space is required to produce five pounds of waste-free asparagus. The economic consequence is obvious. On the current market, cabbage sells for 10 cents and broccoli for 20 cents a pound. The price of asparagus in season is 40 cents a pound. Thus, if cabbage is the vegetable of the poor, asparagus is that of the rich. But the poor have muscles and strong backs; and they can use those virtues to triumph over the affluent by growing their own vegetables.

There are other reasons for the abundance of cabbage and its relatively low cost. It can be easily grown at some time of the year in every state in the Union, and in many regions, the lower South, for example, and along the Pacific coast, one or more varieties can be grown throughout the year. While cabbage is ordinarily a cold-hardy plant grown early in the spring, horticulturalists have developed varieties of it that will tolerate heat and can therefore be grown in mid- season and later. Certain vegetables, such as carrots and asparagus,

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