Page:How and what to grow in a kitchen garden of one acre (IA howwhattogrowin00darl).pdf/133

 spare, it is an excellent plan to sow two or three rows in the hotbed at each planting of seeds, which will furnish them for use several weeks before they can be had from the garden.

There is a general impression that radishes do not do well except in very light soil, while my experience is that it is mainly a matter of manure and cultivation, and that good radishes can be raised early in the season on the heaviest of soils, though later in the season they will not succeed unless the soil be favorable. Where “Night Soil” can be obtained and composted with ashes, it will make the finest kind of manure for the radish bed; but it should be applied with judgment, as it will burn up any crop if applied too heavily. This manure can hardly be so readily applied in a special location in the garden worked by horse power, and I strongly disapprove of making “beds” in such a garden; it should be kept as level as possible, that all the cultivation may be done with the wheel and horse hoes; while “beds” mean lots of slow hand work, and hard beaton ground in the paths and edges, that are perpetual sources of weeds; while in the level garden the location of rows and crops can be continually shifted, every portion of the ground being used, and none escaping cultivation.

For the earliest plantings, the small, very early kinds should be used, and these will grow the finest radishes of the season, fresh, crisp, and slightly pungent. For summer use, the large summer kinds, of very mild flavor, should be selected. These latter should be planted from the first of June until the first of August, after which I begin to sow the small