The Practical Garden-Book · C. E. Hunn and L. H. Bailey

K: Kale to Kohlrabi

11 of 22 · 2 min of reading

KALE. A low-growing, spreading plant belonging to the cabbage family and extensively used for winter and spring greens. The same culture as given to late cabbage is suitable. At the approach of severe freezing weather a slight protection is given in the North. The leaves remain green through the winter and may be gathered from under the snow at a time when material for greens is scarce. Some of the Kales are very ornamental because of their blue and purple curled foliage. The Scotch Curled is the most popular variety. Kales are extensively grown at Norfolk, Va., and southward, and shipped north in winter. Let the plants stand 18 to 30 inches apart. Young cabbage plants are sometimes used as Kale. See Collards. Borecole is a kind of Kale. Sea Kale is a wholly different vegetable (which see).

KEROSENE is fatal to insects. It is likely to injure plants if applied full strength, although if applied in full sunlight (so that evaporation takes place rapidly) it may do no harm. It is safest to apply it in dilution. Of late, there are pumps which mix or emulsify Kerosene and water in definite proportions, and this mixture (in the proportion of 1/5 or 1/4 Kerosene) is fatal to insects and usually harmless to plants. The standard Kerosene emulsion is with soap, but the perfection of mechanical devices for emulsifying it with water is probably destined to supplant the soap emulsion.

Kerosene Emulsion._--Hard soap, 1/2 pound; boiling soft water, 1 gallon; Kerosene, 2 gallons. Dissolve the soap in the water, add the Kerosene, and churn with a pump for 5 to 10 minutes. Dilute 10 to 25 times before applying. Use strong emulsion, diluted four times in winter, for all scale insects. For insects which suck, as plant-lice, mealy bugs, red spider, thrips, bark-lice or scale. Cabbage-worms, currant-worms, and all insects which have soft bodies can also be successfully treated.

KOHLRABI. This vegetable looks like a leafy turnip growing above ground. If used when small (2 to 3 inches in diam.), and not allowed to become hard and tough, it is of superior quality. It should be more generally grown. The culture is very simple. A succession of sowings should be made from early spring until the middle of summer, in drills 18 inches to 2 feet apart, thinning the young plants to 6 or 8 inches in the rows. It matures as quickly as turnips. One ounce of seed to 100 feet of drill.

LANTANA is a popular greenhouse pot-plant, and is occasionally seen in window-gardens, being grown for the profusion of its orange-red, heliotrope-shaped flowers. In the South, and sometimes in the North, it is planted out for the summer. It is very easy to grow, and also to propagate by means of cuttings. Although the flowers of the common species are ill-scented, the profusion of bloom makes it desirable.

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End of part 11 of 22