Vegetables

While tomatoes and cucumbers require a high temperature, lettuce may be

grown easily all the year round. A good method is to grow three crops of

lettuce during the fall and winter, and follow with tomatoes and

cucumbers in the spring, when the high temperature required can be more

easily maintained.



Lettuce is a low-temperature plant, and there is no reason why the small

greenhouse owner should not be able with ease to supply his table

constantly with this delicious salad. As with the carnations, and

violets, if there is no part of a bench that can be devoted to the

lettuce, a few plants can be grown in pots. If this method is used, the

seedlings should be pricked off into small pots. When these begin to

crowd they will have to be given six to eight inches of room, and the

pots plunged in soil to their full depth. But it will be more

satisfactory to devote a part of a bench, a solid one if possible and in

the coldest part of the house, to the lettuce plants. Well rotted

manure, either horse or mixed, and a sandy loam, will make the right

soil. The first sowing of seed should be made about August first, in a

shaded bed out-of-doors; the seedlings transplanted, as with spring

lettuce, to flats or another bed. By the last week in September these

will be ready to go into the beds prepared for them, setting them about

six inches apart for the loose and eight for the heading varieties. The

bed should be well drained, so that the soil will never stay soggy after

watering. The soil should be kept fairly dry, as too much moisture is

apt to cause rot, especially with the heading sorts. Syringe

occasionally on the brightest days, in the morning. Keep the surface of

the bed stirred until the leaves cover it. Keep the temperature below

fifty at night, especially just after planting, and while maturing. And

watch sharply for the green aphis, which is the most dangerous insect

pest. If tobacco fumigation is used as a preventive, as suggested, they

will not put in an appearance. The first heads will be ready by

Thanksgiving, and a succession of plants should be had by making small

sowings of seed every two or three weeks. If the same bed is used for

the new crops, liquid manure, with a little dissolved soda nitrate, will

be helpful.



If a night temperature of sixty degrees can be assured in part of the

house, tomatoes and cucumbers may also be had all winter. If the house

is only a general purpose one, held at a lower temperature than that,

they may still be had months before the crop outside by starting them so

as to follow the last crop of lettuce, which should be out of the way

by the first of April. The seeds of either need a high temperature to

germinate well, and may be started on the return heating pipes, care

being taken to remove them before they are injured by too much shade or

by drying out. In sowing the cucumber seed, pots or small boxes, filled

about half-full of a light sandy compost, may be used, these to be

filled in, leaving only two plants in each, as the plants get large

enough, with a rich compost. If there is a solid bed available, a trench

filled with horse manure, well packed in, will act as a hotbed and help

out the temperature required for rapid growth. If fruits are wanted for

the winter, the tomatoes should be started in July and the cucumbers

early in August. They should be given a very rich and sandy soil, and

the day temperature may run up to eighty degrees. Until the latter part

of spring, when the ventilators are opened and bees have ready access,

it is necessary to use artificial fertilization in order to get the

fruit to set. With a small soft brush, dust the pollen over the pistils.

With the English forcing cucumbers, this will not be necessary. While

fruit is setting, the houses should be kept especially dry and warm.



The vines of both tomatoes and cucumbers will have to be tied up to

stakes or wires with raffia. They should be pinched off at about six

feet, and, for the best fruit, all suckers kept off the tomatoes.



The best varieties of tomatoes for forcing are Lorillard, Stirling

Castle and Comet; of the cucumbers, Arlington White Spine, Davis

Perfected and the English forcing varieties.



If you do not like to stop having lettuce in time to give up space to

cucumbers or tomatoes, start some plants about January first, and have a

hotbed ready to receive them from the flats before March first. With a

little care as to ventilation and watering, they will come along just

after the last of the greenhouse crops.



A point not to be overlooked in connection with all the above

suggestions is that any surplus of these fresh out-of-season things may

be disposed of among your vegetable-hungry friends at the same

step-ladder prices they are paying the butcher or green-grocer for

wilted, shipped-about products.



And don't get discouraged if some of your experiments do not succeed the

first time. Keep on planning, studying and practicing until you are

getting the maximum returns and pleasure from your glass house.