Frame Crops
The unorthodox gardener, taking a risk or two, can now, in fact, do a national service. He will not wait for March for the sowing of short-horn carrots, but will sow in a frame, on a slight hot-bed of leaves or manure, in December and January. He will raise peas, broad beans and, later, French beans in pots and boxes in the glass- house, whether heated or not. He will plant early and well-chitted varieties of potato under the stagings or in frames that can be pro- tected in severe weather. Every source by which early vegetables reached this country is now completely cut off, and no gardener could buy himself a more profitable Christmas present than a garden frame. In it he can raise, two or three months earlier than normal, vegetables which are now luxury imports, following them in summer by cucumbers or, just as simply, melons of the cantaloupe variety, which in my experience offer no difficulties at all, and, at seven-and- six a time, are a crop for plutocrats.
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