War Gardens: A Pocket Guide for Home Vegetable GrowersFree, Montague
History
War Gardens: A Pocket Guide for Home Vegetable Growers
Free, Montague
Vegetable gardening
Peas are affected by a _mildew_ which shows itself on the leaves and
pods as a whitish mold. The plants should be dusted with powdered
sulphur, or sprayed with potassium-sulphide solution to which resin
fish-oil soap has been added to make it stick to the leaves.
Potato.—Two important diseases affecting potatoes are _scab_ and _late
blight_. The former is a disease which lives in the soil and is also
carried over on infected potatoes. It shows itself as scabby spots on
the tubers. Seed potatoes can be disinfected by soaking them, before
they are cut, for two hours in a solution of one part Formalin to two
hundred and forty parts water. This treatment will not prevent scab if
the soil is already infected. An alkaline soil favors the growth of this
disease.
_Late blight_ appears late in the season and causes the leaves to
blacken, become watery, and decay, often accompanied with an offensive
odor. The disease also penetrates the tubers and renders them unfit for
storage purposes. Spraying with Bordeaux mixture is practised as a
preventive measure. It should be applied when the plants are six inches
high, and repeated at intervals of about ten days until the crop is
mature. Crops can be obtained without spraying, but Bordeaux mixture may
be considered as a form of insurance. Lead arsenate may be added to the
Bordeaux mixture if potato-beetles are present.
Tomato.—_Tomato leaf-spot_ is a disease which causes dark-brown spots
to appear on the leaves. The areas attacked shrivel and die. Spray with
Bordeaux mixture.
It is just as important to apply remedial or preventive measures early
in the case of diseases as it is in controlling insect pests. Fine
mist-like sprays should be used as recommended for applying stomach
poisons, and for the same reason.
XIII
THE CULTURE OF VEGETABLES IN DETAIL
This chapter is devoted to hints on the cultivation of the more
important vegetables, together with some mention of varieties suited for
“war-garden” planting.
Artichoke, Jerusalem.—This has about the same food value as the potato,
but, unfortunately, it is a rather tasteless product. Proper cooking,
with the addition of sauces and condiments, will make it palatable. It
is a tall, coarse-growing plant belonging to the sunflower family. If
you have an out-of-the-way spot in your garden where nothing else will
grow, try a few artichokes. It needs sunshine, but is not particular as
to soil. It should be planted in the spring on ground that has had a
dressing of barn-yard manure spaded in. Plant the tubers a foot apart in
rows two feet apart. The plant is a perennial, and likely to become a
troublesome weed unless restricted to one corner of the garden.
Beans.—This group comprises some of the most important of garden
vegetables.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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