The Secret Garden

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Beets

Like beets. "You forgot beets," Joy reminds me. Consider the beet edible and it is a good substitute for meat protein; not that it has any, but when you stab it, it bleeds. In other words, it can be raised, but can you keep it down? You can sow it on July 1, because beets like warm soil and moderate temperatures. Or you can start an early crop ; space narrow rows a foot apart, a month before the last spring frost. Here's something from a book of mine: "Beets are a real treat when pickled." So's my Uncle Mort. This author implies that kids will drop their chocolate when they hear you've got pickled beets for them. This is a lie. Tell your kids this is what happens to turnips that play too much Mortal Kombat on their Nintendos. (Nintendoes? Potatoes? Ask Dan Quayle.)

Chinese Cabbage

"Ignore the tomatoes," Joy recommends, "and put down some useful information about the Chinese cabbage. All right, the pe-tsai ("white veggie," in Chinese) grows rapidly in the cool autumn air, in many kinds of soil. Naturally, it prefers well-tilled rich foam, but it will take sand and like it, provided you amend it with humus and well rotted manure. (Well, rotted manure: a handy curse phrase, fresh from the garden.) Keep the soil moist and plant your seeds in the first week of August or so. At 5 inches, thin to a foot apart. It's frost-hardy, and even after it freezes, you can pick and eat it. It's tasty, unlike a few root vegetables I could name.

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