CUTTING THE HEADS.
The frequency of cutting will depend on the season of the year. In summer, the heads will remain at the proper stage for cutting no more than a day or two, while late in autumn they may often be left a week before becoming overgrown.
Frequent cutting is at all times desirable, however, as it is best to let the heads get as large as they will before becoming loose and warty.
The gain in size not only increases their selling price, but the flavor also appears to improve as the heads approach maturity. Immature heads, though mild and tender, have less flavor than those which are full grown. It is better, however, to cut a head too soon than to leave it too long, for a small solid head will sell for more than a large loose one. To judge when a head has reached full size requires some experience. The size of course, will depend on that of the plant, but its size in proportion to that of the plant is perhaps the most common point by which one judges when it is ready to cut. The head, when it approaches maturity, rises within the leaves and bulges the latter outward, so that one can often tell at some distance which heads are about ready. The surface of the head, as it approaches maturity loses its polished appearance and becomes more distinctly grained. This change, if it does not go too far, does not detract from its appearance and value. To examine a head, do not untie the top, but part the leaves at the side. If there are signs of cracking or breaking it is ready to cut. The heads should be cut with about an inch of stalk and two or three full circles of leaves. A long thin-bladed knife is best to cut with.
The best time of the day in which to cut the heads, if for home use, or a near market, is in the morning while the dew is on, as they will then remain longer in a fresh state than if cut latter in the day. If to pack for a distant market, the heads will carry and keep better if cut when dry, but on a cool day or toward evening.
HANDLING.
The heads must be handled with care to prevent the "flower" becoming bruised or soiled in any way. A bruise will turn black in a short time, the same as a frosted surface, and thus injure the sale of the head. The heads can be handled most safely if the leaves are left on, and these had best be left entire until the plants are taken to the packing shed; and for a near market they may even be left on to advantage until the plants are ready to be exposed for sale. The main object of their removal is in order that the heads may be readily inspected.
Tr.i.m.m.i.n.g.
This is often done in the field, but, as just stated, it had better be delayed until the heads are carried to the place for packing. To trim them, take hold of a head near the b.u.t.t with one hand, holding it upright against you, then with a turning motion, cut clear around the head, leaving the cut ends of the leaves projecting about an inch above the edge of the head. This exposes as much of the head as can be seen at one view, and the leaves as left protect the margin from bruises. The b.u.t.t should be cut off smooth, and there should be left about two layers of leaves.
The heads at the time of packing should be free from moisture, and if the leaves are a trifle wilted they will pack all the better. Flour barrels, or barrels of that size, are best to pack in, as cauliflowers are now usually sold at wholesale by the barrel. Barrel-crates of the same size are also coming into use, especially for the early crop, as the heads are liable to heat in hot weather if packed in close barrels.
Each cauliflower at the time of packing is now usually wrapped in strong soft white paper, the edges of the paper being tucked between the leaves and head. The heads are then placed in the barrels, commencing at the outside, laying them upon their sides facing in, and filling the center with smaller heads. Continue each layer in this way until the barrel is a little more than full. Pack as solid as possible. Cover with canva.s.s or bagging, putting it under the top hoop and pressing it down by driving down and nailing the hoop. Tea-chest matting, which usually costs nothing, may be used for covers if desired.
It may be added that cauliflowers are sometimes packed in their own leaves, just as they come from the field, or all the leaves may be removed but one or two which are to be folded over the head. It usually pays, however, to use paper, but this must be white, or else when bruised it will stain the heads.
Sometimes, when the cauliflowers are to be sold at retail, sugar-barrels are used to pack in, as they cost less than other barrels and are larger. They are always clean and sweet, and do not make too large a package, as cauliflowers are not heavy.
Small slatted crates are also a favorite package in which to ship cauliflowers, particularly early in the season. Large crates, such as are sometimes used for cabbages, are entirely unsuitable.
A method of packing cauliflowers for shipment employed in Denmark, is described as follows: "The heads are to be cut off in a dry state, but not wilted, and with only an inch of stalk. The leaves are to be removed, with the exception of a couple of the inner courses, which should be cut down to such a length as to meet when they are bent gently together over the head. Pack in clean, open neat-looking crates or boxes, in the bottom of which put a few leaves, and on these the cauliflower heads, which should be of a uniform size for each crate.
Pack closely and firmly in layers, taking care, however, not to bruise the tender heads. All the heads in a layer should turn in the same direction, being laid sidewise, and the next layer in the opposite direction, respectively, with top and stem. On the top of the heads fill in with leaves until the cover will press the whole contents so tight as to prevent the heads from moving during transportation."
The price of cauliflowers is less subject to fluctuation than that of most other vegetables. There is comparatively little compet.i.tion between different localities, and about the only causes of low prices are temporary and local over-production, and forced sales caused by damaged stock. One year with another, a dollar and a half a dozen may be realized on good heads, which is more than double the average price of cabbages. Contracts are taken, however, at as low as fifty cents a dozen to supply pickle-factories. Under favorable conditions fully as large a percentage of cauliflowers will head as of cabbages, so that in a good location, with proper care, the cauliflower crop is a profitable one. It may be well to remind growers, however, that one should not attempt to sell a large quant.i.ty of cauliflowers in a small market, for even at a low price people will not buy largely of what they are not accustomed to using. But it is surprising to what an extent a market may be developed for this vegetable. No one who has once used the cauliflower will thereafter do without it, if it can be obtained at a reasonable price.
There is absolutely no necessary limit to the market for this vegetable, providing reasonable care is exercised in creating and supplying the demand. The price in this country ought always to be maintained if possible at at least double that of cabbages, not only on account of the greater delicacy of the cauliflower, but because of the greater care needed in its production, and the uncertainty of the crop, owing to unfavorable seasons and other causes. I could easily quote examples of extraordinary profits made in growing the cauliflower, as well as instances of repeated failure. Cases of both kinds of experience are given elsewhere in the present volume. I have here only attempted to show what may be reasonably expected.
KEEPING.
More attention is being paid of late years to the keeping of cauliflowers in winter, and it is now customary with some to plant a small late crop for the purpose of winter heading. Most growers, however, will have more or less unheaded plants at the end of nearly every season which can be used for this purpose.
William Falconer, of Long Island, sows Extra Early Erfurt about July 1, pots the young plants, and sets them in the open field after early potatoes have come off. In November the plants that show signs of heading are stripped of the larger outer leaves, then taken up and set close together in beds and covered with hot-bed sash. In cold weather straw or thatch is added. In this way the plants continue to give heads until February. Plants which have begun to head may be taken up in the same way and set in a cellar. Just enough moisture should be given to keep them from wilting, as, if too much is given, they are liable to rot. Fully headed cauliflowers are difficult to keep. If hung up in a cellar in the way cabbages are frequently kept, they wilt and become strong in flavor and dark in color. This may be remedied with a few heads by cutting off the stem a few inches below the head before they are hung up, hollowing out the stem and filling the hollow with water.
It is said that the heads will keep in good condition for a long time if packed in slightly damp muck. A simple way of preserving partly headed plants out of doors is to take them up with as much earth as possible and set them close together in trenches, after the manner of celery, placing boards at the sides, and in cold weather a covering of straw overhead. In this way the heads are easily accessible and keep in good condition.
A method employed in Scotland for preserving cauliflower is to bury them in a dry place, heads downward and roots exposed, in the ordinary manner of burying cabbages. They are said to keep well by this method from November to January. The leaves are folded over the heads to keep them from coming in contact with the soil.
Another method, employed in Denmark, is to make a bed of moist sand about four inches deep in a cool room protected against frost; the floor had better be of asphalt, cement or the like. Toward the end of autumn the heads are cut with a piece of the stem three or four inches in length, which is stuck into the sand. All the leaves are removed except the inner course, which must be cut down pretty closely, and the heads then covered with flower pots.
Still another method, employed where hard freezing is not antic.i.p.ated, is to take up the plants and set them out in a slanting position close together out of doors with the heads to the north, as is done with cabbages.
Pulling up the plants and throwing them on their sides will protect the heads from a moderate degree of cold, and can be resorted to upon the sudden approach of cold weather. Cutting the heads with plenty of leaves and throwing them in long low heaps, faces downward, will preserve them in the cool, damp weather of early winter for a considerable time, and the heads, even in this condition, will increase somewhat in size.
It will sometimes happen, early in the season, that one desires to r.e.t.a.r.d the development of the head until a convenient time for marketing. For this purpose the plants may be lifted, when the heads are nearly mature, and set under a shed or elsewhere in the shade.
It may be well here to remind those who grow only a few plants in a garden, and who wish to prolong the season, that several cuttings may be taken from a single head if desired. A portion of the head should be left each time. Occasionally, but not often, a stump will sprout and form a second crop. A method of accelerating the formation of heads, which is practiced in Ireland, may also be worth recording. It consists in slitting the stalk from near the ground upward toward the heart, and placing a stick in the slit to prevent the parts reuniting. The soil is then drawn up around the cut, and the plant staked to prevent its breaking off. It is said that plants so treated will form their heads from six to eight days earlier than they otherwise would.
CHAPTER IV.
THE EARLY CROP.
I cannot do better in treating of this crop than to first quote the following, by the late Peter Henderson, of New York City, from his work on "Gardening for Pleasure":
"There is quite an ambition among amateur gardeners to raise early cauliflower, but as the conditions necessary to success with this are not quite so easy to command as with most other vegetables, probably not one in three who try it succeed. In England, and most places on the Continent of Europe, it is the most valued of all vegetables, and is grown there nearly as easily as early cabbages. But it must be remembered that the temperature there is on the average ten degrees lower at the time it matures (June) than with us; besides, their atmosphere is much more humid, two conditions essential to its proper development. I will briefly state how early cauliflowers can be most successfully grown here. First, the soil must be well broken, and pulverized by spading to at least a foot in depth, mixing through it a layer of three or four inches of strong well-rotted stable manure. The plants may be either those from seed sown last fall and wintered over in cold frames, or else started from seeds sown in January or February in a hot-bed or green-house, and planted in small pots or boxes, so as to make plants strong enough to be set out as soon as the soil is fit to work, which, in this lat.i.tude, is usually the first week in April. We are often applied to for cauliflower plants as late as May, but the chances of their forming heads when planted in May are slim indeed. The surest way to secure the heading of cauliflowers is to use what are called hand-gla.s.ses. These are usually made about two feet square, which gives room enough for three or four plants of cauliflower until they are so far forwarded that the gla.s.s can be taken off. When the hand-gla.s.s is used the cauliflowers may be planted out in any warm border early in March and covered by them. This covering protects them from frost at night, and gives the necessary increase of temperature for growth during the cold weeks of March and April; so that by the first week in May, if the cauliflower has been properly hardened off by ventilating (by tilting up the hand-gla.s.ses on one side) they may be taken off altogether and then used to forward tomatoes, melons or cuc.u.mbers. If the weather is dry the cauliflowers will be much benefitted by being thoroughly soaked with water twice or thrice a week. * * * The two best varieties of cauliflower we have found as yet [1875] are the Dwarf Erfurt and Early Paris."
Notwithstanding the care required for the early crop, the same writer states in his earlier work on "Gardening for Profit," (published in 1867, during a period of high prices,) that "for the past four or five years cauliflowers [early] have been one of my most profitable crops. I have, during that time, grown about one acre each year, which has certainly averaged $1,500. On one occasion the crop proved almost an entire failure, owing to unusual drought in May; while, on another occasion, with an unusually favorable season, it sold at nearly $3,000 per acre. The average price for all planted is about $15 per 100, and as from 10,000 to 12,000 are grown to the acre, it will result in nearly the average before named--$1,500 per acre. Unlike cabbages, however, only a limited number is yet sold, and I have found that an acre of them has been quite as much as could be profitably grown in one garden."
The above, by the late well-known New York seedsman and market-gardener, though written nearly forty years ago, is true to-day, so far as the general profitableness of the cauliflower is concerned, and the extra care required with the early crop.
The chief condition of success with early cauliflowers is that they shall head before hot weather comes on. To this end the earliest varieties are chosen, and they are set as early as possible in the spring, and pushed rapidly forward, as stated, by using protection if necessary, and by high manuring. It is an advantage to set the early plants between ridges, as is done with early cabbage. The ridges hold the sun and keep off the cold winds, and the furrows between carry off the surface water. The plants are best set upon the south or east side of the ridges, near the base. A good furrow with an ordinary plow forms a sufficient ridge.
Formerly it was thought necessary to start the plants in the fall, but since the newer early sorts have been produced, this is being abandoned.
Fall sowing has never been as successful in the Northern United States as in England, and the failures to grow cauliflowers successfully in this country have often resulted from adhering to the methods employed in the Old World. Plants started in hot-beds in February, and properly hardened off, receive but little check when set out, and make a better growth than those which have been wintered over.
In the lat.i.tude of Virginia and Maryland, wintering over the young plants may be resorted to, and for gardeners in that lat.i.tude the methods adopted in England will be well worth studying, even if they can not be literally followed. The time for sowing the seed should be so gauged that the plants shall be neither too large nor too small during the coldest months. If too small they will not be sufficiently hardy to winter over; if too large they will be likely to b.u.t.ton instead of forming fully developed heads.
When the young plants are transplanted into their winter quarters they should be set deeply, as the stem is the part most easily injured by cold; the same rule of planting deeply should be followed in the first plantings in the open ground in spring.
Wintering in the open air in a warm sheltered situation is preferable, where it can be done, to wintering under frames, for plants so exposed will be most healthy and will continue their growth with least interruption in the spring.
Plants wintered under gla.s.s require considerable room, and as much air as can be safely given. If pots are used, care must be taken not to have them too small, or to allow them to become entirely filled with the roots, for this will have a tendency to cause the plants to b.u.t.ton.
b.u.t.tONING.
I cannot perhaps do better than to mention here such other causes as have this same tendency. Anything which checks the growth of the plants when they are a few inches high is liable to produce this result--such as leaving them too long in the seed-bed, withholding water, poor soil, too much crowding. After the plants are set out, a cold rainy time or badly drained land may have the same effect; also a very hot time, if the soil is dry and the plants are not growing well. The check occasioned by the transplanting may also cause the plants to b.u.t.ton, if they have become large, and the soil or weather is unfavorable. On this account it is unsafe to let cauliflower plants get as large as cabbage plants sometimes are when transplanted.
I will close this topic by quoting two paragraphs from _The Garden_, an English journal from which I have already taken much valuable information. The first is by a person who signs himself "D. T. F.," who says:
"Cambrian [a previous writer] attributes this to over-manuring, and no doubt this frequently causes b.u.t.toning, but over-frosting is quite as injurious as over-manuring; and the hard frost which we had here on the 1st of April seems to be sending all the exposed plants into b.u.t.tons, whilst those protected only with gla.s.s lights seem safe and sound and are spreading their leaves wide and looking extremely promising."
The next writer, Mr. Gilbert, adds:
"The whole of my Early London cauliflowers have b.u.t.toned, but not the Walcheren, at least at present. I hear, too, this is the case in many parts of the country. I have for years noted that after a cold severe winter and a warm spring both cauliflowers and cabbages "bolt," but this season having been quite the reverse I thought they might have escaped."
Another writer calls attention to the fact that plants which have been nursed or protected too much during winter are more apt to b.u.t.ton when set out in the spring than those which have been more exposed.