The Family Kitchen Gardener (1856)/Skirret
SKIRRET.
Sium Sísarum.—Chervis, Fr.—Zuckerwurzel, Ger.
Skirret is considered a nutricious vegetable, and would be mare generally cultivated were it not for the large space of ground required to raise a quantity for general use. It is a perennial plant, a native of Asia, and has been cultivated in Europe about two hundred years. The roots are composed of long, fleshy tubers, joined together in the crown or head. They are cooked like Salsafy, and form a very white, sweet, and pleasant vegetable.
Culture.—Soil suitable for the Carrot will also grow this root in perfection. Sow the seeds thinly, in drills, half an inch deep and ten inches wide, at any time from the middle of April to the first of May, the ground having been previously. well dug and manured. Sow a few Radish seeds in the drills, to distinguish them, and admit of hoeing to destroy the weeds, lest they overgrow the crop. In five or six weeks they can be thinned out with the hoe to five or six inches apart. Nothing more will be requisite, excepting a constant stirring of the soil and keeping down weeds. About the first of November the roots will be fit for use, and continue so till Spring. On the approach of severe frost, they should be taken up, cleaned and stowed away, like other roots, in sand or dry earth.