The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1881-10-04
Keeping Vegetables in Winter.

The storage OF the bountiful harvests of
autumn for use in winter, is attracting more
and more attention every year, so that our
winter market is now almost always well
supplied with variety of roots, such as
onions, beets, carrots, turnips, ETC., as well
as plenty of fresh cabbages, celery and
spinach and also squashes.
The requirements of these crops for
keeping well, are very deficient, and de-
pend upon conditions of temperature and
moisture, which are easy to understand, but
by no means easy to control, in our tickle
and ever changing climate. Thus the cool,
damp cellar is good place to keep roots
and apples, provided they can be kept moist
and cold enough to prevent willing. This is
quite out of the question in the modern
dwelling house cellar, in which the hot-air
or steam furnace keeps up constant dis
turbance of the air, and produces a dryness
and warmth ruinous to the preservation OF
roots. Even when partition separates the
furnace from the store room, the careless
neglect to shut the door, or the cracks that
often occur in board partition, are fire.
quently the occasion of a dryness and heat
in the store room, utterly unsuited to the
preservation of such products as roots or
apples. There are other good reasons for
not using the house cellar for storing vege-
tables; if neglected in spring and summer,
the remnant that remains at this season
frequently becomes nuisance and a cause
of disease in the household. For these rea-
sons it is better to make cellar under some
shed or carriage house, or the barn for roots
and apples.
The conditions required for keeping spin
ach are very similar, namely, low tempera-
ture, near the freezing point and very slight
circulation of air. A cellar, as ordinarily
built, mostly under ground, is apt to be too
warm, and for this reason cellar whose
walls rise Slightly above the surface is bet
ter The spinach is spread upon shelves,
with spaces between the boards to allow
free circulation of air; usually two or three
shelves are built over each other, and the
spinach is piled apon them about six inches
deep: slight ventilation is needed TO keep
the spinach we'll, but not too much, for it is
easily damaged by either freezing hard or
by willing; slight freezing does no harm. If
il can be kept from thawing frequently. A
cold frame covered with sashes and shutters
viii keep spinach pretty well for month or
two after cutting II, butts too subject 10
frequent freezing and thawiDg in changeabe
weather, to answer well for longer time.
Celery keeps well under similar condi-
tons, except that it should never be allowed
70 freeze at all after blanching. 1t is usually
stored by healing it in, quite thickiy, in the
bottom of a pit, which is covered with
boards, and the boards protected from frost
by heavy coat of leaves, spent tan or eel
grass. II will not keep well in common
cellar, unless buried up in sand or loan,
the air Of cellar being so dry as to cause it
to wilt.
Unlons keep well in a cold dry cellar, if
not too early; they should be stored in dry
loft. or on barn floor, until cold weather
endangers their freezing, say about Thanks
giving time, when they may be barreled and
put in a cellar. They will also keep well on
the floor of loft, if allowed to freeze slight
ly and then covered with hay to prevent
frequent and sudden thawing, which Injuries
them: they will endure about as much frost
as apples.
To keep other roots, such as beets, car
rots, and turnips, from whiting, it is a good
plan to put them up in barrels with heads,
or to pile them in the cellar about four feet
deep, and cover the pile with little straw
or coarse litter, TO prevent evaporation Ii
the CELLAR is kept cold, they will not sprout
and grow; but this is rot always easy to do,
as mild weather approaches in spring, at
which season good pit keeps the roots in
be ter order than any cellar can do.
To keep squashes well, very different con-
ditions are essential. The squash is a trop-
ical plant, and will not well endure cold
weather; eveen an approach to the freezing
point below 40 deg, injuries them for keep
ing, and If the temperature can be kept uni
formly above so deg. from the time they are
harvested, it will be all the better; free cir
culation of air is essential also, especially
when they are first gathered, and for several
weeks afterward. A cellar with a furnace
in it, where the temperature is above so deg.
will keep themwell. But cellar without
fire is too damp andcold, and they will not
keep long in it. One of the best places to
be found in most houses for keeping squash
es, is closet against the kitchen chimney.
They need looking over every two weeks,
to pick out the speed ones; they keep
pretty well till spring if carefully watched;
the hard shell squashes like tie Hubbard
and Marblehead, keep very much better
than the turban and marrow varieties,
which are mostly used in autumn for
pies, &c.
Tomatoes picked quite green, just before
frost endangers their Instruction, and
spread out upon the benches of a green
house, or under the glass of hot bed,
will ripen after several DAYS, exposure to the
warmth of the sun, and prove very accepta-
bic after the frost has destroyed the vines.
String beans may be easily dried by spread
ing them on roof or other convenient
place, and furnish an excellent winter dish;
they need only to be soaked, and cooked as
if freshly picked. This method is not so
generally known and practiced as it shonld
be-string beans are delicate dish in mid
winter, and well worth the slight trouble of
saving them. Lima BIZ ans sheled and dried,
make most excellent stewed beans in the
winter season so much better than ordinary
pea beans that one would be quite surprised
at the difference who never tried it.-W. ID.
Phi'hricF n N = Farmer.