Making Home ProfitableSaint Maur, Kate V. (Kate Vandenhoff)
Science
Making Home Profitable
Saint Maur, Kate V. (Kate Vandenhoff)
Agriculture; Country life
During the bright warm days the sash of the hotbed should be raised or
entirely removed, but be very watchful of the weather. Spring is such a
treacherous time of year that the warm mornings may develop into frosty
afternoons. Always replace the sash over the hotbed by three o’clock
in the afternoon, and cover with mats before dusk. As soon as the
ground is in condition for the outside nursery beds, dig and thoroughly
cultivate, for the plants which are to be held over for fall sales must
be bedded out as soon as all fear of frost is past, and seeds sown for
the next year’s stock.
The seed-beds in the open ground must be well prepared and made
very fine and fibrous. Sow the seeds in rows and transplant as with
the house seedlings. Beds must all be kept free from weeds and under
good cultivation during the growing season. When severe weather comes
in the fall, cover lightly with leaves or soil, and the plants will
winter safely and be ready for spring sales the following year. The
house-raised seedlings which are to be sold for this year’s bedding can
go into garden beds, but it is really better to put them into small
individual pots, which should be partly submerged in soil or sand.
Customers will usually pay a few cents extra for pot-plants.
There is such an endless variety of perennial plants that it is
impossible to grow them all; in fact, it would be very foolish to
try to do so. Select the best-known and most popular kinds, and have
some of different sizes, so that you can make up selections for beds.
Hollyhocks, foxgloves, golden glow, monk’s-hood all range from three
and a half to five feet in height. After them come phlox, larkspur,
false dragon’s-head, Canterbury bells and bergamot. A step lower are
bleeding-heart, columbine, leopard’s-bane, asters, sweet-williams and
wallflowers. Still lower are Iceland poppies, Japanese primroses,
wake-robin and pansies.
The first year it would add to your profit to grow a few of the
annual varieties in the hotbed collection: Hollyhocks, sweet sultans,
sweet tobacco, asters, wallflowers, mignonette and salvia. Among the
perennials which will flower the first season if seed is sown in boxes
or hotbeds, are monk’s-hood (which is one of the most charming of the
tall blue flowers and comes also in white, and blue-white mixed);
larkspur; Chinese bellflower (large bell-shaped flowers of steel blue,
white and violet); heliotrope and marshmallows (pink, rose colour,
white with crimson spots, and golden yellow with maroon centres)--these
are amongst the most valuable of the first-year bloomers, for they
flower all through the summer. Three of the most fragrant annuals are
sweet tobacco, sweet sultan and mignonette.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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