Artichokes, tart-rhubarb, and horseradish, are other permanent crops found in kitchen-gardens, but they do not require any particular care in their culture.
The temporary crops in kitchen-gardens require a constant change, as it is found from experience that the same crop cannot be grown on the same ground for two years in succession, without becoming of an inferior quality; and thus it is found necessary to fix what is called the rotation of crops, and to arrange that in each compartment a fresh crop shall be grown every year, as different as possible from the one that grew in it the year before. Thus, onions may be succeeded by lettuces, carrots by peas, potatoes by cabbages, and turnips by spinach. These plants may of course be varied according to circumstances; but the principle is never to have two fleshy-rooted plants like the carrot and the potato succeed each other; but always to let a plant cultivated for its leaves or seeds follow one cultivated for its root, and so on.
The cabbage tribe is very much improved by cultivation, but the plants contained in it require a great deal of manure and frequent watering to make them succulent and good. It seems strange that such different plants as broccoli, cauliflowers, cabbages, Scotch greens, and savoys should all spring not only from one genus, but from one species (Brássica oleràcea), which is, in fact, a British plant, and which I have no doubt you have seen growing on the cliffs at Dover, though you would have no idea that a tall straggling plant, with alternate leaves and very pretty yellow flowers, could be the wild cabbage.
The first change from this loose-leaved plant appears to be to what are called Scotch Greens, Borecole, or Kale; and these plants accordingly require the least care in their cultivation. They are generally sown in April, and transplanted in rows into the kitchen-garden, where they only need to be occasionally hoed and earthed up. There are a great many sub-varieties of these greens, all of which generally come true from seed.—Cabbages properly so called have a fine head or ball formed of leaves folded closely over each other; and when eaten young, before the heads have formed, they are called coleworts. Cabbages are sown three times, for the spring, summer, and autumn crops. The spring cabbages are sown in the first week of the August of the previous year, and in October or November they will be ready for transplanting into rows twelve inches apart, where they will remain till they are wanted for use the following spring. The summer crop is sown in February, and transplanted in April, the plants being eighteen inches apart every way; and the autumn crop is sown in May, and planted out in July. All kinds of cabbage require a soil well enriched with animal manure, frequent hoeing-up, and abundance of water, or they will become dry and tasteless instead of being succulent. The stalks of the summer and autumn crops are generally left standing to produce what are called sprouts; and some gardeners only grow one crop of regular cabbages, leaving the stalks standing during the rest of the season for sprouts.—Savoys are large cabbages with wrinkled leaves, which are sown in March, and transplanted in May or June to a bed where they stand two feet apart every way. The crop is generally ready in November, but savoys are never considered good till they have had some frost.—Brussels Sprouts are a variety of the Savoy cabbage, and, as they are said to be very inferior in quality if raised from seed ripened in Britain, you must inquire if the seed you purchase has been procured from abroad.—Broccoli should be treated like cabbage, the soil should be deeply trenched and manured before the plants are transplanted.—Cauliflowers require too much care in their culture for me to advise you to have any thing to do with them.
Peas and beans should be grown in an open sunny situation, and in a light soil that is tolerably rich, but not freshly manured; and hence they are well adapted to succeed the cabbage tribe, the soil for which is always well manured.
Some sow their early peas in November and December, but very little is gained by this; and, if the winter should be severe, the crop is sometimes lost. The best time, therefore, for sowing early peas is in February, and the late ones in two or three sowings from April to July. Before sowing, the ground should be marked for drills, by stretching a garden line along the length of the bed, and then making a drill or furrow along it with a dibber, pressing the earth firm at the bottom of each drill. As soon as the drill is prepared, the peas are regularly dropped along it, two or three to an inch, if they are small, and an inch apart if large, and then they are covered with the soil, which is firmly pressed down over them with a spade or roller. The drills should be an inch and a half deep, and from two to three feet asunder, according to the size of the peas, the marrowfats and blue Prussians requiring more room than the early kinds. A pint of peas will sow from twenty to thirty yards of drills, according to the size of the peas. Dried furze is sometimes put over peas when they are sown, and before they are covered with earth, to save them from mice. If the weather should be dry, the drills may be occasionally watered; and when the young plants are two or three inches high they should be hoed up, the earth being carefully drawn up to their roots. When about six inches high, they should be stacked with two rows of sticks to each row of peas, care being taken to have the sticks higher than the expected height of the peas, and not to let them cross at top. Many persons do not grow any early peas (which are always inferior to the larger kinds), but sow a crop of dwarf marrowfats and green Prussians in March and April for the principal crop, sowing the tall marrowfats and blue Prussians in June and July for a late crop. In this manner a supply of fine-flavoured peas may be obtained all the summer, and in open seasons till the end of September or October.
Beans are sown at the same time as peas, but they should be grown in stronger soil; they do not require sticks, and they are generally topped, that is, the upper part of the leading shoot of each plant is cut off; an operation that would be fatal to peas.
Kidneybeans are of two quite distinct kinds. The dwarf kidneybeans are annuals, which should be sown in drills about two feet apart, the first or second week in May; but the scarlet runners are perennials, the seed of which should be sown two or three inches asunder, and very lightly covered; and the rows should at least be three feet apart. The plants will require sticks like peas. Kidneybeans are generally eaten in England only in an unripe state, the pods being eaten as well as the seeds; the ripe seeds are, however, commonly eaten in France under the name of haricots blancs.
Potatoes are propagated by what are called sets, that is, pieces into which the tuber is cut, each of which contains a bud or eye. Before they are planted, the ground should be trenched and rotten dung dug into it. The early potatoes are planted in March, and the late ones in May or June. When the potatoes are to be planted, a garden line is stretched across the beds, and holes are made along it with a dibber, about six inches deep, and nine inches or a foot apart. The sets are then put into the ground, one in each hole, with the eye upwards, and the earth firmly pressed down on them. When the plants come up, they are frequently hoed and earthed up; and as soon as they come into blossom some cultivators cut off the tops, to prevent the formation of the seed.
The Jerusalem artichoke is propagated by sets, like the potato; and the turnip, the carrot, and the parsnep are propagated by seed sown in drills about March.