Page:How and what to grow in a kitchen garden of one acre (IA howwhattogrowin00darl).pdf/149

 manure and good early plants, to be set out as soon as the weather will permit in the spring. The seed is sown in hotbeds, from the middle of March to the middle of April; if possible, they should be transplanted, when about two inches high, to another sash, where they may stand three or four inches apart. When there is not room for this, the seed should be sown thinly in drills four inches apart, and when well started, should be thinned out to two inches apart in the row. The hotbeds should be given plenty of air on warm days that the plants may be stocky and thrifty when planting-time comes. They should not be set out until the temperature is over 60° at night, or until the oak trees are well out in leaf. They should have plenty of room, at least three feet in the row and four feet between the rows, and for an ordinary family at least four rows should be planted. Two rows should be of the earliest and two with plants sown a month later, for in some varieties there is a tendency to die off after raising one crop, though constant picking as fast as they ripen, and not allowing surplus ones to remain on the vines, will greatly prolong the bearing period; so much so, that in most years I make but one planting. The earliest hotbed plants will begin to ripen fruit the last week in July or the first in August, while, if you make a hill, as for corn, about May 10th, and put in a dozen or so seed where you want the plant to stand, pulling all out but the strongest one when they get a good start, you can have this second lot in bearing about the last of August, without the use of glass or the labor of transplanting.