Harvesting Vegetables...

Let the Fun and Good Eats Begin!

When you start harvesting vegetables from your garden, you'll realize you're now enjoying the so-called fruits of your labors.

Harvest time is the reward you get for slaving away for weeks over your vegetable garden. At last, those sweet succulent peas, the tender carrots and the juicy red tomatoes are ready! What fun...

But there is more to harvesting vegetables than picking and eating them. You also need to know how to store them, because it's more than likely that you'll have way more than you can easily eat—or even give away—each season! Here are some tips...

A good frost-proof, cool basement is the best and most convenient place in which to store the surplus product of the home garden. But, lacking this, a room partitioned off in the basement and well ventilated, or a small empty room, preferably on the north side of the house, that can be kept below forty degrees most of the time, will serve excellently. Or, some of the most bulky vegetables, such as cabbage and the root crops, may even be stored in a prepared pit made in the garden itself.

For pit storage, select a spot where water will not stand. Put the vegetables in a triangular-shaped pile, the base three or four feet wide, and as long as required. Separate the different vegetables in this pile by stakes about two feet higher than the top of the pile, and label them. Then cover with a layer of clean straw or hay, and over this four inches of soil, dug up three feet back from the edges of the pile.

As soon as the first layer of earth is partly frozen, but before it freezes through, put on another thick layer of straw or hay and cover with twelve inches of earth. The pile should be made where it will be sheltered from the sun as much as possible, such as on the north side of a building.

For storing small quantities of root vegetables, such as carrots or beets, pack them in boxes or barrels and covered in with clean sand. Where an upstairs room has to be used, swamp or sphagnum moss may replace the sand. It makes an ideal packing medium, as it is much lighter and cleaner than the sand. In many localities it may be had for the gathering; in others one may get it from a florist.

In storing vegetables of any kind, and by whatever method, see to it that:

They are always clean, dry and sound. The smallest spot or bruise is a danger center, which may spread destruction to the lot.
That the temperature, whatever required—in most cases 33-38 degrees being best—is kept as even as possible.
That the storage place is kept clean, dry (by ventilation when needed) and sweet (by use of whitewash and lime).
That no rats or other rodents are playing havoc with your treasures while you never suspect it.

Vegetables such as green beans, rhubarb, tomatoes, etc., which cannot be kept in the ordinary ways, may be easily and cheaply canned, and where one has a good basement, it will certainly pay to get a canning outfit and make use of this method.

Once you have finished harvesting vegetables, you work is not yet done. You must clean up your vegetable garden for the fall. There are two great reasons why the vegetable garden should not be abandoned—to say nothing of appearances! The first is that many vegetables continue to grow until the heavy frosts come; and the second, that the careless gardener who thus forsakes his post is sowing no end of trouble for himself for the coming year.

For weeds left to themselves, even late in the fall, grow in the cool moist weather with astonishing rapidity, and, almost before one realizes it, transform the well kept garden into a ragged wilderness, where the intruders have taken such a strong foothold that they cannot be pulled up without tearing everything else with them.

We've talked elsewhere about the necessity for having abundant humus (decayed vegetable matter) in the soil—how it acts like a sponge to retain moisture and keep things growing through the long, dry spells which we seem to be sure of getting every summer. but hummus can also help prepare your garden soil for next year.

Buy a bushel of rye, and as fast as a spot in your garden can be cleaned up, harrow, dig or rake it over, and sow the rye on broadcast. Just enough loose surface dirt to cover it and let it sprout, is all it asks. If the weather is dry, and you can get a small roller, roll it in to ensure better germination.

The rye will come up quickly, keeping out the weeds which otherwise would be taking possession of the ground; it will grow until the ground is frozen solid and begin again with the first warm spring day; it will keep your garden from washing out in heavy rains, and it will serve as just so much real manure for your garden; it will improve the mechanical condition of the soil, and it will add the important element of humus to it.

In addition to these things, you will have an attractive and luxuriant garden spot, instead of an unsightly bare one. And in clearing off these patches for rye, beware of waste. Don't let your garden's by-products go to waste. Put everything into a square pile—old sods, weeds, vegetable tops, refuse, dirt, leaves, lawn sweepings—anything that will rot.

Stamp this pile down thoroughly; give it a soaking once in a while if within reach of the hose, and two or three turnings with a fork. Next spring when you are looking for every available pound of manure with which to enrich your garden, this compost heap will stand you in good stead.

Dispose of your old pea-brush, tomato poles and everything that is not worth keeping over for next year. Do not leave these things lying around to harbor and protect eggs and insects and weed seeds. If any bean-poles, stakes, trellises or supports seem in good enough condition to serve another year, put them under cover now; and see that all your tools are picked up and put in one place, where you can find them and overhaul them next February. As soon as your surplus pole beans have dried in their pods, take up poles and all and store in a dry place. The beans may be taken off later at your leisure.

Be careful to cut down and dispose of (or put in the compost heap) all weeds around your fences, and the edges of your garden, before they ripen seed.

If the suggestions given are followed after harvesting vegetables is done, the vegetable garden may be stretched far into the winter.

But do not rest at that.

Begin to plan now for your next year's garden. Put a pile of dirt where it will not be frozen, or dried out, when you want to use it next February for your early seeds.

If you have made garden mistakes this year, be planning now to rectify them next year—without progress, there is no fun in the game. Let next spring find you with your plans all made, your materials all on hand and a fixed resolution to have the best garden you have ever had.

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SBI!