Prepare one or more beds (with alleys two feet wide between) for the reception of the seeds, in the following manner: mark out the bed or beds two and a half feet wide, and of any required length, as near as can be from east to west; line off the sides and ends, driving a stake at each corner to ascertain the boundaries; dig out the earth of the bed one spade deep, removing it to some distance; fill this excavation with the purest and finest sand which can be procured in the neighbourhood, either from the sea-shore, the bed of a river, or from a pit. It signifies nothing of what colour it is, so it be pure, and as free from loam as it can be had; for in proportion as the soil of the bed is poor or rich, so will the flavour of the plant be when dressed. When this precaution is not taken, and when the plants are suffered to enjoy the rich and cultivated soil of a kitchen garden, or the situation made so, by rich dressings or coverings of fresh manure, the plants are stimulated into an unnatural luxuriance, which deteriorates the flavour, imparting to them that strong disagreeable scent and taste, resembling common cabbage, than which nothing can be a greater drawback on the value of the vegetable; but when grown entirely in pure sand, the flavour is mild and pleasant, and is relished by most palates.
When the bed is filled with sand and raised therewith about six inches above the natural level of the ground, (and this should be done previous to the end of March, which is the sowing season,) draw a drill along the middle, from end to end, about three inches [p498] deep, in which drop the seeds pretty thickly, as they can be thinned out to the proper distance after they come up. If the sand or weather be dry at the time of sowing, give a little water in the drill and immediately cover up. If the seed be good, the plants will soon appear, and when they are advanced to a size large enough to enable the gardener to choose the most promising, let them be thinned out to the distance of six or seven inches, the distance at which they may remain. During the summer, the bed should be occasionally watered with dung water; and this for the purpose of encouraging the growth of the plants on their first setting off; and as manure given in this shape is more fugitive than when applied in a more solid or concentrated state, it cannot impart rankness to the plants when they arrive at that age fit to be brought to table.
The plants cannot be forced, nor should any of their shoots be cut, the first winter after sowing; but should be suffered and assisted to establish themselves, and gain sufficient strength to yield adequate crops, in the succeeding years.
About the month of November in the second winter after sowing, a part at one end of the bed should be prepared for forcing. For this purpose, and in order that it may be done with facility and effect, a rough wooden frame or frames should be made, eighteen inches high behind, and one foot high in front, shaped like a common hot-bed frame, and of any convenient and portable length; and in width, the same as the bed. Light wooden covers in convenient lengths should be fixed by hinges to the back; these may be raised at will for admission of light and air, and, in fine weather, may be thrown entirely back. When the frames are placed, dig out the alleys one foot deep to receive linings of hot dung, which may be banked op against both the back and front of the frame. The surface of the bed within the frame must be covered with soft, short straw, or hay, nine inches thick, to arrest the heat which rises from the linings, and form that warm humid region into which the shoots will advance. The temperature of these dark frames must be regulated by due attendance; and in intensely cold or frosty weather, the frames at night will require coverings of mats and litter, to prevent the plants receiving a check.
The required supply of the family—the time for it—and the length or number of the frames, must be judged of by the gardener, and who will act accordingly; but two frames are indispensable; because the second should be considerably advanced by the time the crop in the first is all cut.
Young plants may be transplanted; and if they are to be had, may be tried; but the safer way is to sow and plant both, to prevent disappointment; and in order that the roots be not too much exhausted by forcing, one bed should be forced in one year, and another the next.
The crowns of the roots have a tendency to rise; and as annual [p499] additions of sand will be required after the autumnal dressing, the beds by these additions become unsightly; but cutting off the most aspiring (with its flowering stem) every summer, will keep the whole within proper bounds. Instead of covering with dung or litter, to protect from winter’s frost, the frames may be set on those parts intended to be forced, to answer that purpose; and the uncovered parts of the beds may receive a coat of mould out of the alleys, to be drawn back off the sand in the spring.
The writer of this began to force Sea Kale as long ago as 1798, using hot dung within, as well as without, a frame with glazed lights; but soon found that, neither the glass nor dung inside was necessary or suitable; he, therefore, afterwards succeeded, by the above plan, to produce the finest crops of this vegetable, at any time in the winter months; and can confidently recommend such management, especially to those who have no hot-house or hot-bed frames; because when there is any early forced house or frames, if old roots are properly selected and potted in the autumn, and placed in such house or frame, where there is sufficient heat, and well shut up from light by whelming other empty pots over them, a crop may be had in this way, without the trouble and expense of out-door forcing.
J. M.