ABOUT VEGETABLES

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 5, Issue 43, 22 April 1942, Page 5

ABOUT VEGETABLES

GARDENS DURING WARTIME

MEETING THE EMERGENCY

The growing and storage of vegetables for use in an emergency ijs the subject of a series of hints far housewives issued by the Women's war Service Auxililary in Hastings. The auxiliary points out that a wellstocked garden means fresh salads and vegetables now, stored pumpkins, potaoes, kumeras and onions for the winter, and in any emergency, a food supply to order.

Salad vegetables grow quickly, sot that lettuce, radish, mustard and cress, chives, and parsley can all bo planted and most of them will grow right through the winter as well as the summer. If the garden, is small, big crops: should be avoided and peas, beans, tomatoes, silver beet, leeks, sweet corn and root crops should be concentrated on. French beans, dwarf kidney, haricot and butter beans can be planted till March, and later tomatoes for bottling and pulping can still be planted. The side shoots broken off older plants take root easily. Sweet corn is better sown in clumps and patches than in isolated rows and it can still be sown now.

For Storing 1 The raw juice of swedes is: as nutritions as orange juice, so these should be grown. Carrots should be? sown with a sprinkling of sand in drills to which a week previously garden napthalene has been added. New Zealand spinach does well now if the seeds are soaked first in hot water. Silver beet can replace cabbage until the white butterfly has gone. Leeks should be' planted any time now. For storing vegetables, pumpkins should be cut off clean, leaving an inch or two of stalk.* They must not be bruised and can be stored in a dry, airy room or shed safe from rats. Only undiseased potaoes can be stored. If unblemished, kumeras wiir keep if packed in a wooden box between layers of newspapers. They must be thoroughly dry and must not touch each other. Beans can be collected when the pods turn yellow, dried and stored in airtight jars. Seed from the best plants with, no sign of disease should be saved and stored in an airtight jar. It is a good idea toi tie a muslin bag over the seedhead when it is almost ripe. Do not keep old seed, buit plant it while it is fresh.