HOME-GROWN VEGETABLES.

Lyttelton Times, Volume LXXXI, Issue 10308, 29 March 1894, Page 6

HOME-GROWN VEGETABLES.

The following is taken from an article m a recent number of The Field, and is on a subject which is quite as important to colonial as to English readers It may be that people can buy their vegetables cheaper than they can grow-them”; that all depends on the way they grow them. It is not true in ali enees, and it need not be so in any.' Thera are few things more profitable than a Well-managed kitchen.' garden, and, where the soil is good and the land not dear, the work ought to be as economically done as it is by a market gardener, who sometimes pays a rent of J6lO an acre for bis land. But even if absolutely true—which we deny—green vegetables would be vary dearly bought in the absence of quality and other things which we should like to point out. Any price we may give in the market for vegetables which are not good is too high. Take, for example, peas—the vegetable for which England is, perhaps (take it all round) the country in the world heat fitted; there is no vegetable grown anywhere more welcome or delicate than the best kinds of English peas gathered at the right moment. We have often tried, in the very best houses in London, to get these, and it is not possible to do so except by special request, because market growers always let their peas get bulked np before they come to market; and no one knows what English peas are who knows them through the market, restaurant or hotel. Doubtless many with gardens may make the mistake of not gathering their peas at the right moment,butthat is another matter. A well-managed English garden, with the soil deep, should grow peas of good flavour for five months in any year; and we mean to say that that is a very important thing indeed in talking about coat and value. Not less important, and perhaps to many people more so, is the French or .kidney bean, which has gone through a process of evolution in our market gardens until we see it now nearly as large as a dinner knife blade, generally tasteless, and frequently scaly and stringy, from the desire of the market grower to let things bulk up and look big. Out experience in the best London shops is that nobody can get beans of the right quality or flavour who doaanot grow them himself. Ab there is a distinct difference in quality in many of the most precious vegetables of the garden, the quality of roots, &0., is not, of course, so easily affected. Look at. a London cauliflower, even treated by the best cook—what an odious thing it generally is! Apart from the question of quality, there is the question of freshness, which is also worth paying for. Excellent specimens of market vegetables are often'quite devoid of flavour, owing to being kept too long, as is the case with asparagus, of which the finest samples are often too long cut; whereas those people who have the things in their gardens need not cut until within an hour of the time they are required—a very good plan if people are particular. If this be true of things like asparagus, which are succulent, it is much more so of all delicate green vegetables, like spinach and the whole, family of herbs, which, whan i given fresh, are such an aid to the good cook who uses them wisely, as they always ought to be, instead of the dry condiments which in many cases have taken the place of herbs in English kitchens. A consideration which ought not to bo left out is the greater wholesomeness of fresh garden food. There can ba no,doubt that many of the market vegetables lose their vitality, to some exteat, before they are cooked—certainly much of the imported stuff does. As regards the cost of the kitchen garden.it is often much greater than need be, owing to the number of needless walks and the fine gardening that goes on in it, which itself is a survival of the .day when there were no flowers except in the kitchen garden. The presence of fruit and other trees, too, . and of small fruits, very often 1 , prevents, really good kitchen gardening. •. A. first-rate vegetable garden should have nothing in it but vegetables. It is much better ■to pub the fruit trees all in a place by themselves, and let the vegetables have the full benefit of the deep and rich soil and the moisture which it ensures, and also all the benefits of full exposure to the sun. The beafc_ type of gardening for the house is the Chinaman’s garden, or the market garden—almost within the walls—of Paris, where we see nothing but a sheet of beautiful green salads and green things. Many English cottagers could give points to gardeners in the management of little vegetable gardens ; and a gamekeeper we know is one of the best hands at getting the largest amount of food from a patch of ground, often by inter-cropping—that is to say, having young plants ready to take the places of those taken out. In short, it is a very popular and serious delusion to suppose that one cannot grow one’s vegetable’s cheaper than one can buy them.