Vegetable growing . erve soil moisture and the application of quickly avail-able nitrogenous fertilizers are necessary to secure rapidgrowth and heading before the hot, dry weather of summer. Blanching is necessary with cauliflower to prevent theheads from sunburning and losing their flavor. Blanchingis accomplished by drawing up the outer leaves of the plantover the head and tying them far enough above the headso that it can expand without rotting. This is done when thehead first begins to form, and the leaves are kept in thisposition until the heads are ready to cut. The suns raysare thus el
Vegetable growing . erve soil moisture and the application of quickly avail-able nitrogenous fertilizers are necessary to secure rapidgrowth and heading before the hot, dry weather of summer. Blanching is necessary with cauliflower to prevent theheads from sunburning and losing their flavor. Blanchingis accomplished by drawing up the outer leaves of the plantover the head and tying them far enough above the headso that it can expand without rotting. This is done when thehead first begins to form, and the leaves are kept in thisposition until the heads are ready to cut. The suns raysare thus eliminated and the head grows to maturity in the EARLY CELERY 295 dark, which causes it to develop a white color and attractiveappearance. The heads develop rapidly after they have once made agood start, and they must be examined almost daily tocatch them at the proper stage and cut them before theybegin to break. Examinations can be made by parting theleaves on the north side of the plant so that the head can Fig. 140.—A compactly formed head of cauliflower. Blanching is accom-plished by drawing up the outer leaves and tying them. EARLY CELERY. In order to grow celery for early use it must be wellalong in its development when warm weather comes , too, like early cauliflower, is somewhat difficult to growto maturity during the cool weather of spring. Celeryplants for the early crop are started in the hot-bed. Theseed are planted by or previous to March 1 and by shearingand shifting the plants they are made to grow stocky. Theplants are set in the garden usually the last week in Apriland the crop harvested in August. Blanching is accom-plished by the use of boards. 296 CROPS USUALLY STARTED ON THE HOT-BED Since early and late celery are grown in practically thesame way, with the exception of the points mentionedabove, detailed ciiltmal directions have been omitted here,and will be found in a later chapter devoted to late or maincrop celery which is much more import
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